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To Mars and Back: Will NASA’s Ambitious Endeavor Be Worth It?

A mission to retrieve samples from the red planet is in the works. Some scientists wonder if it’s a wise investment.

UNDARK, BY SARAH SCOLES, 03.20.2024

……………. Mars Sample Return, or MSR, set to launch later this decade. MSR is an audacious plan to collect samples of material from the red planet and send them on a one-way trip to Earth.

……………………………..MSR is also hugely expensive, mired in revision and bureaucracy, and, in some experts’ opinions, lacking adequate scientific value. As the planned 2028 launch date approaches, those tensions are becoming more pressing. Budget uncertainties and possible cuts have put the project in limbo as politicians and scientists alike are questioning how MSR’s cost — currently estimated at $8 billion to $11 billion — and scientific benefit balance, and what it might mean for other NASA missions. “They’re competing for funding,” said Linda Billings, who has been a communication consultant for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office and its astrobiology program. “They’re competing for attention.”

MSR is attention-grabbing, impressive, and has already been appropriated about $1.7 billion for development. It’s also, if it succeeds, a political boon for NASA and the U.S. And so, the program, despite doubts and a current stall, continues, at least for the moment……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

LOFTY ambitions come at a steep price — and one that keeps mounting. In April 2023, NASA announced it was convening an independent review board in part to help wrangle MSR’s budget. And in September 2023, its board — which had 16 members, including Hamilton — issued its report.

The authors estimated that the mission may ultimately cost between $8 billion and $11 billion, a far cry from a 2020 independent review that estimated it closer to $4 billion.

A new report from the Office of the Inspector General largely concurs with the independent review board’s findings, stating that NASA should have more realistic estimates for MSR’s cost and timeline, and that it should revisit the mission’s specifics. 

Given that inflation, the Senate last year proposed slashing the mission’s 2024 budget to $300 million, and possibly canceling it or cutting its scope. (The budget request was for $949 million, a figure the House approved.) The final budget, approved this month gives NASA the option to spend as little as the Senate-suggested $300 million and as much as $949 million on the mission. A report that accompanied the budget noted that NASA must submit its own report on the future of MSR to Congress, after its response to the independent review is complete.

At stake aren’t only taxpayer dollars, but also NASA’s other projects. ………………………..

 MSR has a “near zero probability” of launching in 2028 as intended. If the agency wants to launch by 2030, the next window, it can expect to spend more than $1 billion per year between 2025 and 2027……………

ONCERNS ABOUT MSR value, though, aren’t just about money. Some scientists — including a NASA-funded researcher who studies Mars — question the mission’s scientific value……………………

Billings, the NASA consultant, questions whether the mission will benefit members of the general public, who are footing the bill. “If you’re not a Mars scientist, who cares?” she said.

According to a 2023 Pew study, the public believes NASA’s top priorities should be monitoring asteroids and other objects that might hit Earth, and studying the climate — things that aid life on Earth. Several missions NASA is delaying in favor of MSR do, in fact, deal with such terrestrial concerns.

If Billings oversaw NASA’s budget, she said she would focus on science that’s important not just to scientists but to the broader world: “There should be tangible public benefit.”

………………………..Comparing MSR to Apollo is particularly potent at this moment. The dynamics are parallel: China is also planning a sample-return mission, called Tianwen-3. Such competition from an adversary was fuel for NASA during the Cold War, when the agency went up against the Soviets in space. “That was really the reason why we sent people to the Moon,” said Lee. “It wasn’t even about science at all.”

And while science will surely come out of MSR, this mission may owe its continued existence more to political power and international competition — things that tend to resonate with Congress. That is, after all, what appropriators are generally more concerned with, compared to the ages of alien rocks.

……………………..Today, while NASA retools the mission and fashions a response to the independent review, work on MSR has largely been paused….. https://undark.org/2024/03/20/nasa-mars-sample-return/?utm_source=Undark%3A+News+%26+Updates&utm_campaign=12776643e7-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5cee408d66-185e4e09de-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D

March 23, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | space travel, USA