Mars Sample Return Options

[stevesliva]

Is it just because, well you know, its Mars? Is it the possible life thing? Is it programmatic inertia?

Presumably a lot can be learned, yadda yadda.

But yeah, it's Mars, it's the next big obvious thing to do, and NASA et al should do it first after the two big rovers.

I do sort of feel for whomever was calling for innovative mission designs with proven technologies, though.

[StargazeInWonder]

Mars Sample Return is a huge budget item that has seen its funding rise and fall, which puts a block on other priorities, so that alone makes it news, while a possible mission that has never gotten authorization is almost by definition not news (or very minor news).

An outer planet orbiter will also take years to produce any results in the best case, and I don't think the public imagination would see it as a potential ground-shaker until and unless it found something surprising.

If you polled people on the street, I doubt that many know that missions are on the way to the Mercury, Venus (planned), and jovian systems. But Mars Sample Return would definitely occupy some news cycles, even before the first pebble got under a microscope.

[mcaplinger]

https://spacenews.com/practical-approach-ma...return-mission/

Worth a read, but I'm skeptical of Zubrin's 50-kg total mass Earth return vehicle. And even if the delta V numbers work out in the abstract, he presupposes all the planetary protection requirements can be made to go away.