An all-in-one solution would be far too heavy. Splitting the tasks up makes a lot of sense. Having all the equipment onboard to drill cores, quickly analyze them, decide if they're worth keeping, and then putting samples in containers is enough work for one rover.
reply* Storing all the samples onboard means a larger and heavier rover
* Mass budget squeeze means no more helicopter
* The return requires a ground launch from mars, so no more SkyCrane delivery system
They store the empty tubes, why not the full ones? Are they collecting that much mass that it’s really impractical. Are the empty tubes nested like solo cups to save space? I understand the rationale for the sample return, but those tubes will be hard to find after years of dust storms.
replyPerseverance, obivously, has onboard instruments to analize the samples before dumping them on the ground
replyNo. The sample is only physically measured and then imaged. https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/jpl/the-extraord... All further analysis will happen when the sample is returned to earth.
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replyBecause the powers that be would have deemed a real plan as too expensive.
reply> would have deemed a real plan as too expensive
replyWho are these "powers that be"? And do they have an infinite credit card? Could they really just do whatever they want and for some reason they choose not to?
Yes. They decided that it was more valuable spending a trillion dollars bombing people halfway around the world (and enriching weapons companies in the process) than it would be to spend a few billion advancing science.
replyNASA's budget is $24 billion this year. That's substantially larger than even Trump asked for, which was $16 billion. For reference, the ESA, the entirety of the EU's budget for space exploration and enterprise: $8 billion.
replyUSA has two goddamn robots on Mars. And multiple others orbiting the planet itself. And also a couple that have left our solar system.
The Trump administration wanted to cut NASA's science budget in half, so the final number ($7.25B) is about 1% less than last year's budget. https://www.science.org/content/article/nasa-s-mars-sample-r...
replyThe powers that be are the US federal government. Their credit card is extremely large, but that money is going towards wars and weapons.
replyThe entity that has exclusive power over the US federal budget, and thus NASA budget, is called the US Congress. This is a standard arrangement in representative democracies.
replyYes, and that Congress gave them $10 billion more than they were even asking for.
replyUm, NASA doesn't ask anything from the Congress, they get no say. They did not request their budget to be halved. They advise the executive, and then the executive asks the Congress to halve their budget and cancel half the missions because, you know. Luckily, the Congress was not inclined to agree because NASA actually has a solid bipartisan support.
replyNASA administrator Bill Nelson https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/04/nasa-says-it-needs-bet... and then, once somewhater cheaper options had been considered, Congress following Trump administration priorities. https://www.science.org/content/article/nasa-s-mars-sample-r...
replyThe war in Iran costs about $95m a day and is already over $43b cost to the taxpayers, just in military spending. That's nearly two NASA budgets in just over 200 days.
replyThe "powers that be" chose to lose a completely optional and ill-conceived war on your dime. Instead of science or helping people they decided to spend money blowing up schoolgirls.
Or, it's simply cheaper to send the equipment to analyze the samples in the rover, than to send the samples back.
replyAgree, the decision to drop samples on the ground doesn’t make sense to me. Store them in the rover. Much easier to find them all in one spot later.
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