Mars Sample Return Options

[Rakhir]

Next phase reached in definition of Mars Sample Return mission

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMJAGNFGLE_index_0.html

[John Whitehead]

I was sorry to learn of the disaster at JPL two weeks ago, somewhat expected but still a shock. I can relate to the pain, stress, and disillusionment, having myself been through a layoff at a contractor-operated government lab in 2008. This year, three contributing factors came together.
1. Technical difficulty of MSR underestimated, hence cost and schedule too optimistic.
2. Entire federal budget in limbo, more than a third of the way into the fiscal year.
3. As the only contractor-operated NASA center, JPL suffers disproportionately.

Ironically, my own mid-life job change came after I steered my career toward trying to help with MSR. In 2005-2007, NASA funded some of my lab work toward implementing launch vehicle technology on a tiny scale, for launching samples from Mars. The funding did not continue, despite technical progress. Ideally, recent decades would have included more effort on all the new technical challenges unique to MSR, without having compromised funding for all the tremendous successes that did occur for Mars science.

Hopefully brighter days and years are ahead. The quality, quantity, and diversity of the core samples collected by Perseverance should be compelling, to sustain the effort. Sedimentary rock from Mars has got to be well over ten times as valuable as asteroid samples (OSIRIS-REx cost over one billion dollars). In addition to science, MSR should be prioritized for the sake of national prestige.