For nearly half a century, NASA has been talking an awfully good game about its much-heralded Mars Sample Return (MSR) project. As long ago as 1978, the space agency requested funding to develop a mission that would see an uncrewed spacecraft land on the Red Planet, collect and cache samples of rock and soil, and bring them back to Earth for study—all without the risk and expense of sending human crews out to do the spelunking.
During a Jan. 7 press conference, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson conceded that costs have exploded, deadlines have unraveled, and unless MSR receives a major rethink now, there may be neither will nor wallet to fly the long-awaited mission to collect the Mars rover's sample tubes.
It was thought that it could be as much as $11 billion and you would not even get the samples back till 2040, Nelson says. Well, that was just simply unacceptable.
Though Nelson declared flatly that he had as a result, pulled the plug on [the mission] as it's currently envisioned, things are not quite that grave. Last April, NASA went quietly seeking private partners, including SpaceX and Blue Origin, which could help provide hardware and defray costs.
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