Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Image credit: NASA

NASA wants to bring Mars samples to Earth, but budget problems and technical woes have the mission caught between a rock and the Red Planet.

Meanwhile, there appears to be an unofficial robotic space race underway involving the Red Planet.

Both the U.S. and China are scripting a strategy for bringing back to Earth goodies from Mars via their respective Mars Sample Return (MSR) endeavors.

China’s Red Planet plans. Image credit: CCTV/CNAS/Inside Outer Space screengrab

Real-time hand-ringing

For America, things are now happening in real-time on Mars.

The NASA Perseverance rover is busily wheeling about within the ins and outs of Jezero Crater, biting into and snatching primo chunks of Mars for eventual pick-up by a future MSR mission.

But slapped around by independent assessments, the space agency wound up hearing a cash register ka-ching sound for MSR that rang up to upwards of $11 billion.

Also, a time period of 2040 would be needed to inspect any FedEx-like delivery of select Mars dirt, rock, and atmosphere on Earth.

The Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) is a major and costly component of NASA’s robotic Holy Grail mission, a Mars sample return effort to bring back to Earth Martian collectibles.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

For details, go to my new Space.com story – “Can NASA’s troubled Mars Sample Return mission be saved?” – at:

https://www.space.com/the-universe/mars/can-nasas-troubled-mars-sample-return-mission-be-saved