This mission is representative of what JPL has become. Leadership there increased the cost of the program to $11B and would not bring the samples back until 2040, they also designed the mission around legacy rockets like Ariane 64 instead of working to lower costs and increase capacity by working with industry and designing around Starship or New Glenn. The moon missions brought back 842 pounds of rocks and MSL would bring back 1.1 pounds. It’s directionally better to wait for manned missions to Mars so we can bring back tons of rocks or even do the research on Mars itself. It seems like the JPL mission is maximized to provide jobs to researchers and maximized for mission complexity rather than just buying rocks from a contractor with quoted price and lead time.
I’d be interested in working there to help accelerate the program but I’m not if I would get support internally.
> It’s directionally better to wait for manned missions to Mars so we can bring back tons of rocks or even do the research on Mars itself.
I'm worried it's arguments like this that doomed MSR [0]. Why spend 11 billion to get a couple rocks back in 2040 when Starship will be sending astronauts in 2030? But now it seems the near term goals of the Starship program are changing. At this point, who knows when we'll send people to Mars?
> buying rocks from a contractor with quoted price and lead time
I don't know about you but I'm not hearing anyone say they've reserved Starship mass-to-Mars-and-back. You're right that we should rely on private industry more. The CLPS program is the most comparable example (although time will tell whether it's a good one). But for a mission with the risk tolerance of MSR, the CLPS model doesn't work, IMO.
And meanwhile the Chinese are planning on launching their sample return in 2028. They're gonna beat us by a decade.
[0] My thoughts here are partially from this great blog post: <a href="https://mceglowski.substack.com/p/who-is-the-villain-in-mars-sample" rel="nofollow">https://mceglowski.substack.com/p/who-is-the-villain-in-mars...
Yall, we're not putting humans on Mars anytime soon.
Okay, okay, rather we're not getting humans back off of Mars anytime soon.
Landing is by far the easy part. MSR was partly a mission to see how hard it really is to get anything back into space from the Martian surface. If you can manage a pound, you can probably then manage 3 or so 180 pound humans and all their safety support.
Like, think of it. You somehow have to land a fully fueled rocket on freaking Mars. No site prep, near vacuum and no aero breaking, very expensive and nearly impossible second chance.
Fine fine, you just land the shell and then refuel on Mars with some form of automated fuel refinery on Mars. Like, if you have robots that can do that, you've ended capitalism already and have no need for humans in the first place.
Im not saying a human return mission is impossible, but it is just so very much harder than a Trillion dollar Apollo program lets us believe.
People have successfully dropped autonomous robots onto Mars before. Wouldn't be out of the question to do so again, except that instead of rovers, the robots could be programmed to open up crates (dropped at the same time, or by a previous or future mission) and assemble what's inside into a landing or launch pad.
Would take a lot of prep missions, and might not be worth the cost, but in theory it's doable. Curiosity massed 900 kg and Perseverance massed 1025 kg according to Wikipedia, so dropping a metric ton of supplies for the robot to assemble would, again in theory, be feasible. (In practice the equipment for landing the supply crates safely would take up a good chunk of the mass budget, but there should be something left over in the mass budget for the crates to contain).
If you have robots like this, why send humans in the first place then? You've already got the bots that can do pretty much everything a human could want to do and you don't have to get them back off Mars.
Robots specialized in assembling one machine are not general-purpose robots. I doubt they would be able to "do pretty much everything a human could want to do".
Now, if someone does perfect a general-purpose, AI-driven robot, then yes, sending that robot on the Mars mission instead of a human would make a lot of sense. That's kind of, kind of, what we've done already with the rovers. But until such a general-purpose robot is actually created, human beings are still the most versatile, adaptable entities that could go to Mars.
angelgonzales · · focus · HN ↗
I’d be interested in working there to help accelerate the program but I’m not if I would get support internally.
3lambda · · focus · HN ↗
I'm worried it's arguments like this that doomed MSR [0]. Why spend 11 billion to get a couple rocks back in 2040 when Starship will be sending astronauts in 2030? But now it seems the near term goals of the Starship program are changing. At this point, who knows when we'll send people to Mars?
> buying rocks from a contractor with quoted price and lead time
I don't know about you but I'm not hearing anyone say they've reserved Starship mass-to-Mars-and-back. You're right that we should rely on private industry more. The CLPS program is the most comparable example (although time will tell whether it's a good one). But for a mission with the risk tolerance of MSR, the CLPS model doesn't work, IMO.
And meanwhile the Chinese are planning on launching their sample return in 2028. They're gonna beat us by a decade.
[0] My thoughts here are partially from this great blog post: <a href="https://mceglowski.substack.com/p/who-is-the-villain-in-mars-sample" rel="nofollow">https://mceglowski.substack.com/p/who-is-the-villain-in-mars...
Balgair · · focus · HN ↗
Okay, okay, rather we're not getting humans back off of Mars anytime soon.
Landing is by far the easy part. MSR was partly a mission to see how hard it really is to get anything back into space from the Martian surface. If you can manage a pound, you can probably then manage 3 or so 180 pound humans and all their safety support.
Like, think of it. You somehow have to land a fully fueled rocket on freaking Mars. No site prep, near vacuum and no aero breaking, very expensive and nearly impossible second chance.
Fine fine, you just land the shell and then refuel on Mars with some form of automated fuel refinery on Mars. Like, if you have robots that can do that, you've ended capitalism already and have no need for humans in the first place.
Im not saying a human return mission is impossible, but it is just so very much harder than a Trillion dollar Apollo program lets us believe.
joeguilmette · · focus · HN ↗
sssilver · · focus · HN ↗
rmunn · · focus · HN ↗
Would take a lot of prep missions, and might not be worth the cost, but in theory it's doable. Curiosity massed 900 kg and Perseverance massed 1025 kg according to Wikipedia, so dropping a metric ton of supplies for the robot to assemble would, again in theory, be feasible. (In practice the equipment for landing the supply crates safely would take up a good chunk of the mass budget, but there should be something left over in the mass budget for the crates to contain).
Balgair · · focus · HN ↗
rmunn · · focus · HN ↗
Now, if someone does perfect a general-purpose, AI-driven robot, then yes, sending that robot on the Mars mission instead of a human would make a lot of sense. That's kind of, kind of, what we've done already with the rovers. But until such a general-purpose robot is actually created, human beings are still the most versatile, adaptable entities that could go to Mars.