NASA’s plea for help on Mars sample return
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- Опубліковано 27 кві 2024
- Episode 160
Returning samples from Mars would yield huge payoffs but with a huge price tag and a long timeline, neither of which is acceptable to NASA. Now NASA has put out a call for “out-of-the-box” ideas to save the mission. - Наука та технологія
Elon Musk is going to have cities on Mars by 2023, so this really shouldn't be a problem.
As an European, I am so angry that ESA can't do more. We are right now at just 1/3 of NASA budget (7b€ vs 22b€), we could at least be 2/3 and be on the front seat instead of the back seat of space exploration.
ESA already has a spacecraft on the way to the Jupiter system. They are ahead of NASA in that respect.
I guess you forgot about Juno.
ESA is just focused on other stuff rn
ESA is more science orientated. NASAs budget goes into political projects and being the first in everything to a large part.
NASA is a political entity ESA isnt. They’re not comparable in purpose.
No problem. I just got my weekly allowance. Will a tenner do?
No way, it's going to take at least 30.
If it's got a 'B' after it
When I first saw the sample return plan I thought it was very extraordinary, but not too complicated for these space guys! Come on guys, put your thinking caps on and get this done I can't wait until 2040, jeesh, my time is a bit limited! I do like though that they're reaching out for help! Thanks for the update Mr Mars, another great video!
Thanks as always for watching and appreciating!
Thanks for the update. The brutal reality of science funding. Keeping fingers crossed that somehow we'll get the samples back to Earth.
Screw NASA on our Tax Dollars. Musk can bring them back on his return mission.
Me too.
More money for this and less for wars please
*More money for space exploration in general!*
But the governments don't see any point in it, because it doesn't make them money or give them power. 🤦♂️
Good idea. Inane,impossible and against human nature but good.
@@codename495 Inane? You a flat earther?
@@codename495Spoken like a true warmonger democrat
This is why i love Mars Guy. Putting things into context and making it understandable to us lay persons. This is surely one of the most important videos you've dropped. The importance of this mission for our progress in understanding Mars history is hard to underestimate. We can do so much more using our laboratories on Earth. The combined capabilities of the best labs and equipment on our planet could be brought to bear on samples taken from one of the most interesting locations on Mars for some big questions: Is there evidence of life on another planet?
One detail i didn't understand. 1:20 "Its carrying a rocket and the largest array of solar panels ever sent [...] which are needed for the power to maintain the rocket"
Why does the rocket need so much power to be maintained? Does it need to be maintained at a certain temperature due to the fuel? Is it a solid propellant rocket? Does that need to be above a threshhold temperature so much higher than Mars ambient temperature?
I vaguely remember that at least *one* proposal was to make fuel on site, which would require lots of energy, but I don't know for sure if that's what Mars Guy is referring to (especially if it's solid propellant).
@@AySz88 Oh, I see , something like Moxie to generate the oxygen in situ? But that would only make sense for a liquid fueled rocket. For example methane. But there you'd need to cool down and liquify the oxygen and a lot of energy would be needed. But i think solid rocket fuel would make a lot more sense for the sample return mission. No oxygen needed.
Thanks for the kind words. And yes, the current MAV design uses solid propellant, which apparently has to be kept above some minimum temperature, requiring abundant power.
Its impressive just to get to Mars successfully, getting a sample returned to Earth would be huge achievement for mankind.
I follow these reports, regularly. Probably because I'm accustomed to the format, this particular "Mars Guy for scale" made me snort my coffee.
Ha, sorry!
It's ridiculous that the set out on this mission with no clear way or plans to retrieve the samples!
If there was no clear plan what was all that stuff I just watched in the video?
they had clear plans but could not get funding. Its not the engineering or planning that's the problem, its the politics of funding. If NASA had a fixed percentage of the GDP each year they could plan further into the future but that's not how things work.
@@xsleep1 What the plan the just came up with? That's too expensive?
@S-T-E-V-E, you and many, many other people set out every day with no clearly developed plan of returning home except for habit and expectation that hazard will not thwart your path and destinations. Unique space missions (or generally unique or complex projects of any scale conducted anywhere) can't rely on large number statistical results to weld all the gaps together from initiation.
And yet, they already have Mars meteorites here on Earth - lol.
The way you explain geology, episode(s) about the Mars "spiders" near the "inca town" would be awesome.
Maybe I miss something, but why didn't Perseverance keep the samples with itself, so there is only one location with all the samples ? Like in a box or something easy to grab. Now we need another rover to take the exact same path, find the samples, and then take off, that seem a bit inefficient.
It's just plain stupid.
There is. 😂
@there is. Are you the one that's just plain stupid now?
Perseverance kept a lot of samples, the samples it put down are "backup" in case Perseverance is enable to deliver them when the return mission arrive.
Exactly, the plan is (to my knowledge) is to deliver the samples by Perseverance to the launch vehicle. It drops the second containers as a backup if it can not do the first plan.
Extreeeeeeemely complex solution. Oh my...
Is the long-term target to land a human crew on Mars? If the answer is yes then surely the sample return mission must be regarded as part of a rehearsal for that. The technology tested and knowledge gained from a successful sample return mission would be invaluable to the eventual success of a future crewed mission. The COST of a crewed mission would be 10 or even 20 times the cost of an SRM. 8 to 11 billion spent on the SRM seems to me a good investment. If it takes until 2040 then so be it. Mars ain't going anywhere-it will still be there.
This makes complete sense and I think is what NASA should and will go for.
SpaceX wants to go to Mars more than anything... just let them do this as a rehersal. They are building Starship exactly for this.
If humans are ever sent to Mars, the assumption would be that they would stay there for their natural lives. They can use solar energy to grow food, and extract oxygen and water from the planet. Any needed supplies can be periodically sent.
To stay there is far in the future. The first manned missions would only be for 2 years to coincide with earth/mars alignment.
@@peterjackson2666 i don't believe this is the plan either NASA, ESA or China has. Rather the plan is that they'd stay for one Mars Earth close approach cycle (about 2 years). Tbh i think they need to work out automated in situ fuel and oxygen generation and cache both before sending any humans there. Otherwise its just a prolonged death sentence.
We all saw this coming from a mile away. At least they haven't given up all hope yet, but I can't shake the feeling that a person is going to get to Mars before one of those capsules gets to Earth.
I don’t believe that any human mission to Mars is possible before 2040, unless someone is willing to spend $200 billion or more to make it happen.
not sure wich is more expensive
@@user-ue3sr5rc6d Keeping humans alive during a trip to Mars and return is 10-100 times more expensive than sending a robot spacecraft to bring back a small number of sample tubes.
Sorry, I'm rushed off my feet right now. I'll nip round next week and pick up the sample. 👍
It's now or never!
Go NASA, wish that this project get's the budget and can get those samples back to planet Earth.
Thanks Mars Guy! 👍💪✌
Agreed!
Brillant, as always! Thank you Mr. Mars 😘
Thanks again!
Great explanation. Thanks, Mars Guy.
Thanks!
Very complicated, still a great video, thanks for sharing.
Thanks for watching.
All we need is for the Chinese space agency to announce they plan to do a Mars sample return mission first AND establish military installations on Mars, and just like that NASA will have all the government funding it needs for the next thirty years.
Bfr be like hold my beer
Holly smokes 😮..... I did not realized that the sample container had to be captured by an other spacecraft for landing on earth.....
I didn’t realize there was no radio communication between the sample and spacecraft! How will they find a basketball in orbit?
I think that's a bit of an assumption from Mars Guy. Radio and battery technology today of all times is small enough to do exactly that. The capsule doesn't even need a recieve function.
Very frustrating. You know they are there "just for grabs" - and this darn "grabs"-thing is a pure nightmare to conduct! Let's hope they give it the priority it deserves.
Agree with the public call for a solution. Why guarantee of not finding a better solution by not asking? Who knows there may be a garage hobbyist that has an idea that was overlooked by others. Example, I championed for a Cathodic protection system separate from the power plant grounding system but was met with resistance from upper management. When asked why I thought it was so important, I said because there is an underground pipeline entering the power plant and pointed to the large bold black line on the map. Apparently everybody else missed that. Thanks for sharing.
damn i didn't realise the plan to get the samples back was so cool. I hope it goes well.
Thank you Mars Guy for an excellent update.
I want to know how we spent a fortune to send a rover to Mars that’s collecting samples,
without a definitive retrieval plan? IMO, someone’s head should be on a spike….(figuratively, not literally)
As far as spending another 8 to 11 billion on something that hasn’t even been constructed yet, I say pass….
Put that money into the development of sending a maned expedition for establishing a permanent foothold on Mars…
Then maybe figuring out how to more cheaply fetch the samples once that beachhead has been established.
( actually, this is way above my pay grade) 👍🏻😎
Great vid MG.. if not a bit disheartening! What a complex architecture! I see SO many potential points of failure. But, then JWST had well over 300 and it worked.
I get the keep some and cache some approach. Makes sense. If something happens to Percy, they still have the cached samples. Another couple Ingenuity type vehicles could hunt them down. Though they could be blown around and covered in sand by then! Bring a magnet!
I don't recall the time line being so far out. I thought that it was 2030ish. But 2040.. plus the analysis time? Now this is almost a generational project? I'm just going to hope that I live into my 80's and that my brains aren't already mush by then!
Science is hard! Some 11th grader in Sweden is probably going to win the competition lol
Imagine if there was some form of life there. Confirmation would be the biggest discovery in history. Without a sample return that would be impossible. Get with the program, earthlings.
For Perseverance samples - make a major effort to reduce the size of desired instruments to FIXED automated-lab lander size, a lab lander which will also be useful to land and use at future rover investigation sites. Land the lab in Perseverance's area and fly sample tubes to the lab with two or more (for redundancy) improved Ingenuity helicopters which are delivered WITH the lab.
3 stage craft
1 drop the lander (Stage 3)
2 lander collects the samples
3 Once collected, launch retrieval collector to where ever the samples are (Stage 2)
4. Load retrieval craft using Lander
5 Launch back to orbiting stage, dock and aim for earth (Stage 1)
6 Get to Earth drop retrieval stage
Okay simplistic view, very complex to do but makes sense to me.
Yup seems kinda odd to not just store them all on the rover, rather than hide & seek recovery
Perseverance is carrying most of the samples onboard, which would be delivered to the rocket. Some were put into a sample depot in case Perseverance can't deliver its samples.
Should have kept the samples with the rover and saved a few billion.
Perseverance is carrying most of the samples onboard, which would be delivered to the rocket. Some were put into a sample depot in case Perseverance can't deliver its samples.
Notice how that company that is always talking about colonizing Mars hasn't said one word about this.
Musk said SpaceX can do the MSR in 5 years, if NASA wants them to do it. So, Elon time+reality means 10 actual years
Musk tweeted about it. Now I'm not sure if you consider this "one word" or not...
@@jeremiefaucher-goulet3365 I blocked him on Twitter because his posts there are so regularly counterfactual or offensive and I don't want to run the risk of ever being on his radar. He is one of the most dangerous people alive today, thoughtlessly enabling the people who would undo our society as he spreads magical thinking and discredits science and engineering.
This is ice water in our faces about how underdeveloped our tech is
... and no radio beacon on the little rocket, the one with all the samples?
That's so risky
I wonder if you couldn't make the return satellite much smaller using electric thrusters, a foldable reflectarray antenna for comms, and some small roll-out solar arrays for power. I'd think the arc jets used for stationkeeping on a lot of GEO satellites would be ideal since they double the ISP of even bi-prop chemical thrusters and still have enough thrust per kW for orbital maneuvering on a lightweight spacecraft. Maybe you could even adapt of the GEO busses for the mission and save on designing the whole spacecraft. If that can keep it under 4 tons, which it probably could, it would fit on a Falcon heavy direct to Mars, which saves a lot of money too.
you could probably also equip the mars ascent vehicle with a pulsed plasma thruster third stage for rendezvous and just accept that it'll take a few months of orbit-raising to save some more mass on the MAV and the return satellite.
That's the out of the box thinking they are asking for.
I would think by now atleast a large chunk of it could be done with off the shelf components rather than entirely novel equipment.
My suspicion is the lander end of things is likely the most expensive part of the mission, but there really should be a way to brute force it through, these missions to get terribly wrapped up in red tape and politics.
ESAs Earth Return Satellite is/was planned to have ion propulsion.
@@zapfanzapfan yeah, but it's still a 7-ton spacecraft to get a 100kg sample container home including the heat shield. that seems overbuilt somehow.
it also isn't pure electric. it uses a Hydrazine-MON stage for Mars orbit insertion, which is 1/4 to 1/3 of its delta-V. I think, given how much power it has for the ion engines, using very well-proven arc jets for orbit insertion could save significant mass by doubling the ISP and using self-pressurizing ammonia instead of Hyrazine-MON with a helium pressurant. Mars' gravity well just isn't that big so the Oberth effect isn't that big compared to double ISP and a lighter propulsion system. also, maybe roll out solar arrays would help and they were proven for deep space at that distance with the DART mission.
@@mrln247 part of what the lander ran into is that they decided to go with solid propellant for "simplicity" but it turns out that while solid propellants store well on Earth they can be difficult in deep space, I think partly because excessive thermal cycling can crack the propellant grain, so it needs a bunch of extra equipment to take care of it. There's a reason why all long-duration space missions use Hydrazine-MON and why Nitrus-Ethane and Nitrus-Propane are the obvious replacements. I think this would be the first time anyone has used a solid motor that's been in space longer or farther from earth than a kick stage.
I think it would be interesting to design an electric pump-fed engine like Rocket Lab uses for Hydrazie-MON. Electric pump fed isn't that complicated, it probably stores better on Mars than solid propellant, and you get 35s extra ISP with a lighter structure since you don't need a high-pressure casing or tank. That's enough extra performance that it would probably end up being single-stage and still be lighter.
@@thamiordragonheart8682 Is a detailed design published? Orbit insertion engines for large satellites tend to be 400-600N. The arc jets I have seen are 0.2 N and use 2kW.
Yeah, I figured the sample retrieval idea was a little optimistic.
Man, talk about a Rube Goldberg-type of mission! If any one part of the mission fails, the whole chain collapses. Who writes this stuff?
But think of how many Science! points we'll get.
I don't see a problem with our current technology being able to recover and inventory the core samples for return flight back to earth. Are they asking for new or newer technologies or a better recovery process?
Project Hail Mary is the other book!
My outside-the-box thinking: to give NASA the $$$ they deserve !
Remember about the US military spendings on air conditioning and voilà...
nonsense
@@whousa642 lol yep
Glad they are doing this! I've been saying perhaps the Indians can find a way to get it done cheaply. It would be such a tragic waste if they are not returned. But I support the Dragonfly mission too.
Thank You Mars Guy! It does not sound good to me. I was sure the plan is already prepared and approved!
NASA has adopted in recent years a recommended strategy to utilize an independent review board to review large missions before giving final approval. That's what has happened here.
The return vehicle could be combined with a mission to send people to orbit Mars
If they could make the Apollo lunar lander have a control pod on top of it to bring back the astronauts couldn't they make something smaller and similar to bring back samples
Mars has more than twice as much gravity as the moon, as well as an atmosphere to contend with.
Mars sample return is like fusion, always 20 years away...
I really hope that Nasa timeline and price estimate included the usual 300+ percent cost overruns and the three time longer timeline delays too but probably not.
ps. loved Mars Guy being cut off by the solar panels! very funny..
Glad you were amused by that!
Would samples not be buried under dust and dirt by storms by now?
The atmosphere is so thin, there aren't really any storms. It will take thousands of years for those samples to be buried.
@@CybAtSteam i know atmosphere is thin but they can be quite severe at Mars because of that. Fine dust particles paired with lower gravity can produce global dust storms on mars. Dust was the reason last small rover died due to its solar panels getting covered in layer of dust.
How about this....Concentrate resources to completing the Mars mission already underway, return the samples
to Earth, and delay the other pie-in-the-sky missions to other planets and their moons.
This is a good excuse to explore the technology involved in a reusable Mars lander and ascent vehicle and other capabilities that would be needed for a realistic human exploration mission to Mars. A lander capable of landing on Mars from low Mars orbit, fully propulsively.
The "Hail Mary" pass begins on Earth (not Mars), which significantly determines the constrains for MSR (Mars Sample / Return) mission. I'm specifically referring to the rocket booster(s) that are required to launch the NASA and ESA spacecraft to Mars for MSR. The cost for these rocket boosters will likely be more than 50% of mission costs, but are hardly mentioned. or discussed! 🚀🙀
The odds are good that a reusable rocket (like FalconHeavy, Neutron, Starship, TerranR, etc) can place a larger mass in LEO at lower cost than any prior booster within the required timeframe. With ESA being a partner, their role needs to be negotiated to avoid geopolitical politics. As current strategy has ESA providing the critical MSR travel logistics.
Worth noting, that ESA has instruments launching on Chang'e 6 from China in May (2024) which will collect the first lunar samples from the far-side of the moon. (Don't ask NASA's current director, as he's in the dark on lunar far-side matter. Sorry, bad pun. ;) A reminder that ESA can work with some spacefaring nations, that U.S. Congress has banned NASA conducting collaborations.
Side note: China has reiterated in recent weeks that it has goals to to conduct a MSR mission in the 2030 timeframe, along with goal of a crewed lunar landing before 2030, and establishing a lunar base by 2040.
Nothing like a little game of "space race" for added competition and motivation. ⚽✨🏁
Wouldn't it be cheaper to scale down whatever mass spectrometer and ship it to the surface of Mars, instead of bringing samples? An on site lab could yield even better results.
Just don't do it. Expensive and high risk. Spend the money on other missions like landers on the icy moons of Saturn and Jupiter.
Seems to me the design and implementation of the return of the samples would have be part of the design of the whole program? Let's get Mars Guy to Mars and let him set up camp, fetch the samples, and return with them. Wonder if Matt Damon is available, he's got experience.
This is so sad and stupid, after planning this mission for decades not having the funding to do it...
Esa is in an even worse situation with Rosalind Franklin, and the Chinese aren't just going to stay there and watch...
You can't even ask SpaceX or any other commercial partner, they put a really high technology readiness level requirement, and that won't do with say Starship for example...
They landed, took off from the moon and landed on Earth with moon rocks ! WHY they couldn't heve developed a similar mars lander and load the samples on it and have it come back with just the mars samples less the astronauts !?
Mars Guy's best webcast yet. If Elon has his way he'll be loading up Perserverance with all the samples and charging NASA for the tow job back to Earth long before 2040. Even then I might not be around to see the first Martian microbes. Bummer!
The existing plan was always pretty far outside of the box and innovative. What else can you do, besides perhaps making your fuel on Mars
It's funny how they get such the budget to spend and yet NASA of all companies and corporations, needs help. Does the monopoly really not have enough?
public agency cost: YES
spaceX: "nasa/10 cost"
XD
At this rate, someone is going to hop off a Starship and grab the tubes by hand in 2040
Starship will NEVER carry humans and never get to Mars.
@@hanspecans Maybe. Unfortunately, a huge part of NASA's current budget is both tied to, and depends on, Starship carrying humans to the surface of the Moon. If it turns out that Starship isn't capable of that then the cancellation of Mars Sample Return will be the least of NASA's problems.
@@hanspecans You must have a time machine to be so certain
Lost count on the number of potential nodes. Presented “architecture” puts all the “eggs” in one basket, or, pod. A number of recent and past landers have ended poorly on their side or in a ditch. I have great faith the base lander can be delivered to Mars orbit. It is the rest that makes me nervous with that one cold launched rocket and the intercept. Of course, I suspect one big return rocket can be delivered with less Earth takeoff mass due to the volume of fuel growing as the cube of the diameter (or diameter squared times length when length is same for small and big rocket) while the exterior structure grows as the surface area (Pi * diam * length or just diam * Pi fir constant length).
That’s his funding works w gov
Easy let's get UPS!!! If anybody get the stuff it’s them!
If I had 61 bi for a war across the globe I would spare 1/3 of it to bring samples from Mars. And make history on a budget.
I wonder why they selected ESA instead of CSA to build the robot arm.
Maybe they are asking for the wrong thing, we dont want the samples we want the data from the tests we would run so dont return the samples send a lab there to do the testing and transmit data home plus having that lab onsite would allow localized rover missions for indepth further study
I say we just put mars guy on a starship and have him go pickup the samples himself
Ha ha!
Politics aside, this was always an ill conceived plan that has a near zero chance of seeing the light of day. However without a way of returning these samples, Perseverance is nothing more than a means of delivering Ingenuity to the surface of Mars. Something that could've been for much less if that was the only mission. Perseverance isn't doing what hasn't already been done and is continuing to be done by other rovers. Calling into question the entire mission aside from Ingenuity.
Seems weird to do the study after everything has been sent up to Mars
Shame politics precludes this but it would make a hell of a lot of sense for china's 2nd or 3rd sample return mission to be modified to go meet Perseverance.
that is a shame. in the current climate, seems pretty unlikely. But actually space is an area where we can collaborate and benefit all humans. What if China did the return of these samples and got a share of them to analyse?
Wait aren’t there tubes scattered all over the place? Yet the lander would only land in one place and thus would only be able to collect one tube??
If i recall correctly there was a plan to use ingenuity-style helicopters with wheels to collect the containers and bring them to the lander.
I think the idea was to bring another, larger, helicopter to Mars which would go and collect the samples from their various locations and bring them back to the lander. That would be a separate mission from the one with the orbital rocket.
Doesn't the rover have its' own cache? It scatters samples on the ground in case that can't be retrieved for whatever reason. I think the main goal is to obtain the rover cache of samples rather than go hunt and gather. Regardless, ESA's success rate at reaching/landing on Mars is less than 50% last I heard so real seat of the pants stuff!
The dropped tubes are the backup ones. The rover kept a second sample of each location, and those are the ones that will be dropped near the lander for pickup.
It would be amazing if we could get some of that $879 Billion in DoD dark money redirected towards things that matter for all of us.
Heres what i don't understand, the landing/launch from the martian surface. Why do we need this complicated launcher when its just a spin stabilized solid rocket anyway.
There wouldn't need to be any significant control systems either, just run it all from fuses and have the orbiter use an ion engine so theres plenty of Dv to manuver to catch the rocket. Id understand maintaining the return vehicle if it was a direct ascent/return using RP1/ox, insulation would not be sufficient, but for solids??? And doesn't perseverance already have an arm?
We don't need to design all this bespoke equipment. I'd like to see development of a standardized modular injection vehicle from spacex to be used with their falcon heavy and definitely starship in the future, considering elons goal of mars. Something like a falcon 9 upper but with storable propellants. Spacex has already built like 300 falcon 9 second stages since they aren't reused, they could easily make an injection/orbital manuver vehicle The ammount of money nasa and esa waste developing new transfer vehicles for each mission is ridiculous. Instead of looking at payload to LEO, lets see Payload to MEO.
I believe we'll have humans on Mars by 2040, Looks like the astronauts will be able to pick up and return the samples by that point...
Weather balloon grabs the samples and yeets them up to where a hypersonic "skimmer" craft dives into the Mars atmosphere (didn't even slow down to enter orbit) and ::clang!:: eats the balloon.
all your eggs in 1 basket -- what could go wrong ?
Surely this was always the case, and part of the existing mission an obvious waste of time and money?
Yes, it's been an open secret. See Artemis for another example.
Not correct: Perseverance does actual science already. It is not useless without the sample return. It makes important discoveries, as any other rover on Mars or on the Moon.
@@Sonnell They said "part of the existing mission".
NASA---Let's see how overly complicated and expensive and disappointing we can make this
Apparently wars are more important than Science
Here's an idea - STOP giving open ending bottomless contracts to aerospace contractors that have NO intention of actually fulfilling their contract at any cost - it's just an endless check for the contractor with no realistic plan on making any of it happen.
If this is a problem, then a manned mars mission is also way off. (While originally planned for the 2040-ties) both can’t be true, or we would just as well wait for a manned mission.
Right
they should focus on doing basic space infrastructure like skyhooks. before even talking about Mars colonies.
@@Valgween mars colonies are SciFi, a mars mission would be like an Appolo mission: land, take a picture, go home asap.
Humans aren’t made for it, even if we would technically be able at some point. (We are lucky to have the Moon as testing ground)
@@ivarbrouwer197 I doubt that. The Mars transfer window opens about once every two years, so it's likely the first mission will have a surface duration of about that length. Even if that wasn't a factor, a Mars ascent vehicle will have to produce its fuel on-site. That process is likely to take at least a year. Why don't you think humans could survive that long on Mars, anyway? If we can build a spaceship that humans can live on for a full year of interplanetary space travel, building a small habitat on Mars shouldn't be too difficult. Unlike the moon, Mars isn't just a rock a few hundred thousand kilometers away. More like a few hundred million...
@@Astra2 I have to admit that the logistics are indicative of a longer stay, but radiation duration and supplies make it hard. As for producing fuel on site? Just send the return mission hardware upfront. I think David Weirs mars book/ movie played with that concept.
What's a hail mary pass??
The Chinese are doing a sample return soon, maybe see how that goes
Since the Moksi device can produce oxygen, could it be used to produce rocket fuel on site or at least not have to bring the return rocket fuel… (since it will only have to get the payload in orbit, it’s probably not that much, so maybe not worth the effort…)
As you said, such "On-Site" fuel production would only "solve" a relative minor problem, while introducing countless additional things that could go wrong. Solid fuel rockets are relatively simple compared to using liquid fuel, and the fuel production unit would probably weigh way (pun intended) more than the fuel in "Pre-Fueled" rocket!
@@TecraX2 well, we can scrap that shortcut then. (Would be useful for a mission with a bigger payload probably)
@@ivarbrouwer197 Yeah, "On-Site" fuel production has much more potential benefits when it comes to eg. long-term manned missions, since the production of Oxygen can also be used to solve the Life Support problem!
Hang on. If that’s so difficult, what’s the chances of getting a human being there and back?
Make more sense to send a robotic laboratory to Mars and do the analysis there.
Or just ask El "Megalomanicac" Elon Musk, He touched down on Barsoom in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024,... but nobody lived to tell the tale, allegedly.
@@JZsBFFBAROSOOM 😂😂😂😂😂
@@JZsBFF Maybe he's been busy playing zenophelia with Dejah Thoris
One of the most obvious ways to obtain help is to involve china, who have some experience in this sort of thing.
This was obvious from the start.
That looks a very complex mission with loads of potential for failure.. I have just read the book Chariots for Apollo and the original schemes were talking of going to the moon and going to Mars also in a sort of continuous long term plan for NASA. I think Kennedy's goal of beating the Russians to the moon was a double edged sword. It gave NASA a short term goal with an ideal point to cut funding. I was also really disappointed when there was no plans to build a Mk2 STS shuttle. I feel the whole of manned space exploration is in the doldrums. I was hoping to see people on Mars in my lifetime but I doubt I will see people on the moon again let alone Mars.
It looks horribly complicated with multiple points of failure.
Seems straight forward enough ( except for having all your tubes in one basket.). Does the growing era of 3D metal printing have any relevance to this quixotic enterprise?
My money is on Rocket Lab to reach Mars before any other company and they 3D lots of their stuff, soooo..... maybe🤷♂️
@@relwalretep I didn't think of them!! And, yes...all the wannabees must be considering their chances and Rocket Lab could be the frontrunners.... have they got solid fuel experience?
Federal gov't agencies are their own worse enemies, we need to do this for us, but you'll do it the way we tell you how to do it
and by the way the big guy gets 10% of the total monies spent on a monthly basis
and if you have new ideas they had better come from our old established friends in industry, who know how we want things done
Yep, much better to collect several tons and bring them back with Starship not later than 2035 ... probably much earlier. I bet 1 dollar.
Getting a Mars sample back to Earth would be so cool
pay for it
@@whousa642 Think I'll just cheer when NASA do their thing
@@madzen112 childish
@@whousa642 practical
@@whousa642Most people do, because taxes 🤓
Good luck with that dream 2040 at least they scored the touchdown .build another helicopter that will as better to watch
Returning samples was always a foolish idea. There are much better places to search for life.
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If we can't take the rocks back to the laboratory, we must send the laboratory to the rocks. And inside the lab, a team of tiny robo-geologists set to deploy. You're welcome NASA, I accept cash and/or robot naming rights
Yes