It seems there's always money for wars and grand ballrooms, but science? Bah! They don't need no stinkin' science!
Apparently, the current U.S. administration has cancelled the funding for the MSR (Mars Sample Return) program. So all those rock samples that the rover has collected will just stay on that planet.
The space program has driven a great deal of the technological advancement of the last decades. You'd have to be pretty stupid not to see the potential benefits from this (including the possibility of the discovery of life in Mars' past).
I tend to doubt they just abandoned the project. Speculatively, perhaps they just couldn't come up with a feasible way of bringing the craft back to earth. I think it's incredible they got it there at all, and they certainly were able to send back all kinds of useful data over the years by radio. I never even realized they ever intended to try to transport the rocks back to earth. I doubt it's a money problem, somehow it seems money would not be the real issue.
How would they even fuel the transport? Solar? If so, how would they get it off the planet? Solar couldn't accomplish that kind of propulsion.
I got curious and took a look.. From what I gather, getting the samples back to earth involved sending a second spacecraft that contained within it yet another tiny rocket fueled spacecraft to mars that upon landing would collect the tube samples from the rover with the help of little helicopters and robotic arms which would put the samples into the third other basketball sized launcher that would launch the samples into mars orbit, apparently to be left in orbit for yet a fourth spacecraft to be sent to retrieve it at some point in the future and then eventually return it to earth...
Wow
As for why it was cancelled, for what it's worth, I just asked AI, which explains:
Reasons for Cancellation
Ballooning Costs: Independent reviews found that the original $7 billion estimate had surged to between $8 billion and $11 billion.
Unrealistic Schedule: The initial target for returning samples was 2033, but projections slipped to 2040.
Political Shift: The 2026 budget priorities have shifted toward the Artemis program (Moon exploration) and laying direct groundwork for human Mars missions rather than continuing "financially unsustainable" robotic programs. "
The problem is what these things don't say.
NASA's general budget has been cut 25% this year. It's science budget specifically 75%. That's what's driving the cuts, as well as the current administration's desire to take over everything in sight, including the Moon and Mars - hence, the focus on manned spaceflight (which, in terms of actual science, means little).
And anyone who doesn't think that the Artemis and Mars manned programs won't run over budget is smoking something pretty strong.
Unless I misinterpreted, they are shifting their current 11 billion mars robot budget towards manned moon operations instead because it's more feasible and realistic. Budgets are always in fluctuation, are they not? Is the current 25% cut really so notable? Subtract 25% and that leaves them only 8.25 billion to work with? Must be hard to work on such projects with that.
It's all beyond my head, isn't NASA a private enterprise (just like Tesla)? Hasn't it always been? How is it they get all these billions of dollars from the government anyway? I understand it's for the advancement of science, but is it so objectable that they'll be getting a few less billion this year than last? Do not budgets change all the time?
Same goes for the public broadcasting budgets - which also are private enterprises, I never even knew the government had ever funded them, I was more surprised by that then the budget cuts themselves.
I've never been particularly interested in the political realm of rackets, which is why I seldom pipe in with comments concerning it. It's all smoke and mirrors as far as I'm concerned, it's all a matter of perspectives and impossible to look at in a realistic manner.
A bunch of noise.
A little tidbit:
- United States: Holds the highest total government debt in dollar terms (over $38 trillion), but a lower debt-to-GDP ratio compared to the top-ranked nations.
I've followed the space program for years, and one of the companies I worked for assisted in the creation of the robotic arm for the ISS. In fact, I headed up a project to research and develop a Proof of Concept AI system for another robot to do maintenance on said ISS. That was in the early 90s, so well into the infancy of AI (and it hasn't gotten much better since then, although that's the topic of another thread).
Manned flights are inherently more wasteful, in terms of money and scientific results, mainly because of the safety concerns. And it tends to be political propaganda that drives these things, rather than science.
Robotic missions are much cheaper, are driven by the science rather than "the looks", and you don't have to overcompensate for safety.
All I'm saying is that science is not driving the budget changes to NASA. It's politics.
Roughly $18 billion to NASA. $1.5 TRILLION to the military. And by the time the new White House Ballroom is done, it will likely cost a significant fraction of the NASA budget. That's not science.
All I'm saying is that science is not driving the budget changes to NASA. It's politics.
I can totally agree with that.