NASA suggests Mars Sample Return to cost $4 billion and 10 years. Not really.

[mikegarrison]

As I understand it, the current plan is that Perseverance will carry the samples around until it reaches some spot, then it will dump them out. So there will be a cache of samples, not a long trail of them.

[kerbiloid]

The mission motto:

[Elthy]

No matter which method you propose to get the samples back, anything would take longer to develop than starship, even if you account for Elon-time. One could argue that relying only on SpaceX  is a bad idea, but in that case it would still be stupid to build a single-use sample-return mission for several billion dollars instead of a proper mars transportation system as humanity needs the latter anyway.

[mikegarrison]

1 hour ago, Elthy said:

No matter which method you propose to get the samples back, anything would take longer to develop than starship, even if you account for Elon-time.

I will remind you that Starship has successfully landed only once and has never actually reached space. The booster has never launched. It's still *very* speculative to be assuming they are going to be landing on Mars six years from now. Maybe. But maybe not. (Probably not, IMO, but hey, I could be wrong.)

[tater]

6 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

As I understand it, the current plan is that Perseverance will carry the samples around until it reaches some spot, then it will dump them out. So there will be a cache of samples, not a long trail of them.

That's what I would think as well.

Of course any such cache has to be in or near someplace appropriate to land in (landing ellipses are fairly large/flat), then they need another rover to pick them up, and bring them to the return vehicle. Really does seem needlessly complex to me vs landing, sampling the landing site, then leaving.

Edited September 13, 2021 by tater

[Hannu2]

1 minute ago, tater said:

That's what I would think as well.

Of course any such cache has to be in or near someplace appropriate to land in (landing ellipses are fairly large/flat), then they need another rover to pick them up, and bring them to the return vehicle. Really does seem needlessly complex to me vs landing, sampling the landing site, then leaving.

It certainly is but it is extremely improbable that lander lands near specially interesting target if rovers need to drive kilometers to find them. Samples from those rocks will be much more valuable than bag of sand from random place. If we begin with "simple stupid" -class mission then researchers ask soon next level mission.

On 9/10/2021 at 5:08 AM, Exoscientist said:

 All these are existing elements so could be mounted, like, tomorrow, and at a few hundred million dollar cost.

Maybe on some idealistic level of thinking. Include funding bureaucracy, political issues, delays for various reasons, companies' and individuals' efforts to take personal advantage from every desicion etc. nasty real world stuff you get 4 billions and 10 years as a first (utterly optimistic) estimate. Then delays and budget overdrafts begin until after 20 years and 10 billions someone cancel the program.

[tater]

4 minutes ago, Hannu2 said:

It certainly is but it is extremely improbable that lander lands near specially interesting target if rovers need to drive kilometers to find them. Samples from those rocks will be much more valuable than bag of sand from random place. If we begin with "simple stupid" -class mission then researchers ask soon next level mission.

True enough, but having not done any sample return at all yet, they need to start someplace. Any return vehicle landed would be well-served to have a contingency sample capability (sample the landing site).

Maybe they mean to land the pickup lander as a separate mission? So sample return is 2 launches? Of course both then need to work for mission success.

Remember the point of this particular thread is that such a mission need not take several billion $ and a decade, but could happen sooner, and for by Mars mission standards, "chump change" on the order of a few hundred million $.

The few hundred million option could be Keep It Simple, Stupid! and do what would be contingency sampling for a more expensive mission (landing site sample, as Apollo did first thing off the steps). Should that be achieved, they could send more cheap return vehicles to different sites, and they'd have Mars samples before the complex mission even left Earth.

It occurs to me that the point of a 400kg return vehicle I read about is so it can stay with the rover. Ie: land rover with sample pickup arm, AND the return vehicle, drive to cache, load samples, send return vehicle.

That simplifies some things, though means the sample payload is lower given that small return vehicle mass.

[Rakaydos]

On 9/11/2021 at 11:19 PM, kerbiloid said:

Roscosmos is wanting ...

...Yes, they do that a lot. Rarely does anything come of it.

They still have issues actually DOING anything that doesn't involve hardware handed down by the Soviets.

[Hannu2]

20 minutes ago, tater said:

True enough, but having not done any sample return at all yet, they need to start someplace. Any return vehicle landed would be well-served to have a contingency sample capability (sample the landing site).

That contingency sampling would be a good idea. If fancy mechanic fails lander would just scoop a local dirt and put it in return capsule instead of bored stone samples.

 

20 minutes ago, tater said:

Remember the point of this particular thread is that such a mission need not take several billion $ and a decade, but could happen sooner, and for by Mars mission standards, "chump change" on the order of a few hundred million $.

Is it easier or faster to make smaller and cheaper missions? It all political issues are taken into account?

[kerbiloid]

Sky Crane...
Sky Claw...
Claw Crane...

Gotcha!!!

They need a skyclawcrane.

Spoiler

 +   =  → 

 

[tater]

37 minutes ago, Hannu2 said:

Is it easier or faster to make smaller and cheaper missions? It all political issues are taken into account?

LOL, political issues are never taken into account. So 10+ years and billions it is, then

 

[StrandedonEarth]

8 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

They need a skyclawcrane.

Edited September 13, 2021 by StrandedonEarth

[mikegarrison]

3 hours ago, tater said:

Maybe they mean to land the pickup lander as a separate mission? So sample return is 2 launches? Of course both then need to work for mission success.

The current plan is to send a lander/rover/ascent vehicle that will land at the cache site, collect the samples, and launch them to orbit. This will then transfer them to a vehicle in Martian orbit which will return them to Earth. So (like the Apollo landings) they trade the complexity of orbital rendezvous versus having to land and re-orbit their Earth-return vehicle.

[Beccab]

Just now, mikegarrison said:

The current plan is to send a lander/rover/ascent vehicle that will land at the cache site, collect the samples, and launch them to orbit. This will then transfer them to a vehicle in Martian orbit which will return them to Earth. So (like the Apollo landings) they trade the complexity of orbital rendezvous versus having to land and re-orbit their Earth-return vehicle.

Won't the european mars rover pick it up and then, later, deliver it to yet another lander with the ascent vehicle? May be mixing up what the ESA contribution will be to the mission, not sure

[kerbiloid]

In 2030 the nuclear interplanetary tug flight to Jupiter is scheduled.

If rent some place, it can pick up the box from the Martian orbit.

So, they must just lift it up.

[mikegarrison]

1 hour ago, Beccab said:

Won't the european mars rover pick it up and then, later, deliver it to yet another lander with the ascent vehicle? May be mixing up what the ESA contribution will be to the mission, not sure

Maybe?

I think there are lots of plans right now, and not so much funding.

[Elthy]

11 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

I will remind you that Starship has successfully landed only once and has never actually reached space. The booster has never launched. It's still *very* speculative to be assuming they are going to be landing on Mars six years from now. Maybe. But maybe not. (Probably not, IMO, but hey, I could be wrong.)

Of course, but any alternative is in even earlier states of developement. So even if SpaceX fails at first they are far ahead and have plenty of time to get their system to work.

[tater]

For any speculative mission in the middle-near time frame—<10 years—Starship is certainly the elephant in the room. This is particularly true where the mission target is Mars. An expended SS (SSe) could easily put a decent sized spacecraft en route to Mars. That's ignoring any attempts by SpaceX to land a SS itself, I just mean as part of testing vehicle capability (or demonstrating to NASA that SSe is an option for certain missions).

Still, already existing vehicles seem to be more OP's point.

[Meecrob]

With regards to the feasibility/seeming stupidity of the sample return, its a tech demonstration. Simple as that. Nobody has made a rover that has been able to take samples and let something else pick them up from another planet ever. Its probably a dead end, but remember, NASA was born from NACA which is R&D...and R&D has more dead ends than successes. Alluded to upthread, if there is extra capacity on a rover, why not cram it with stuff to test out. "Test" being the operative word. It is like everyone here is going "NASA is dumb". No NASA is trying stuff out, and we all know..or at least the engineering-minded of us know that its relatively easy to come up with a solution when you are told "you need to pick up things that are X size and Y amount and return to Earth". Ask an engineer the question "give me some samples of martian soil" and watch as they ask, "How much? When? From where? To where? Do you want us to drill or scoop? Could you please narrow down the requirements? This is gonna take decades"

[kerbiloid]

Currently it looks more like they urgently launched an expensive picking rover with having no idea how to return the samples and why.

The idea was looking strange from the very beginning at least because it means landing another billion-costing probe at the same place to take the already studied samples from the very local place.

Now they are trying to develop the Plan B while even the Plan A was not included. Such a systematic approach...

[RCgothic]

The thought occurs that for excavating a hole for a sub-surface sample Starship's main engines may be extremely effective.

[kerbiloid]

For the Starship itself it would be a literal b/hurt.

But unlikely would bring anything but fried stones without dust which was blown away.