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NASA Plans On Bringing Back Martian Rocks

Posted by timothy on from the what's-a-couple-of-billion-for-some-rocks dept.

FortKnox writes: "In this Y! article, NASA is planning on sending a robotic mission to Mars in an attempt to bring back Martian stuff (rocks, soil, etc...). Looks like its a tough mission to plan for; they are calling it 'Apollo without the astronauts.'" I would like to go to Mars in person, but if they're spending my money already, I'd like them to please use robots for a while.

13 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. Smaller, Cheaper, Better by pgrote · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I like NASA's new approach to things. My primary concerns about the mission though are the following:

    1) What can we do by inspecting the rocks in person we can't do remotely? We should be able to do everything except touch it.

    2) What other benefits do we get out of the mission?

    3) Will there be additional scientific study accomplished on the ground? I mean NASA's track record on landing things on Mars hasn't been great ... this doesn't even include shooting things back.

    1. Re:Smaller, Cheaper, Better by astroboy · · Score: 5, Insightful
      What can we do by inspecting the rocks in person we can't do remotely? We should be able to do everything except touch it.

      There's a limit to how much experimental equipment you can shove onto a Mars probe. Some amazingly cool things have been done, but once you get the rocks back to Earth, you can unleash everything you've got in the lab on 'em.

      What other benefits do we get out of the mission?
      Anything which pushes the boundaries of the engineering -- getting the unmanned probe to launch itself back to Earth -- will have great impact on both the Space program and terrestrial spin-offs. And that's quite apart from the science.
  2. Franklin said it best! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Offtopic

    Those who would trade mars rocks for earth rocks deserve neither mars nor earth rocks.

  3. More Information... by robbyjo · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here is the lab of Jet propulsion labs that does the robot thingie. This is the software to test the robustness of the robots. NASA has learnt from several failures apparently.

    A picture of martian rock with some explanations, if you're interested. Along with some interesting rock with bug patterns!

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  4. Yet More Information... by robbyjo · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here is the link of the actual Mars mission along with the status and risks. And check out all the robotics projects behind the scene. Cool...

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  5. Because we can by MikeyNg · · Score: 4, Insightful

    People are asking why go all the way to Mars and then bring stuff back when we can analyze it there? I think people are missing part of the point. If you're going to send people there eventually, you'd like for them to have a way to get back. There are all kinds of tricky things involved with leaving a planet. Heck, landing on the moon and reaching lunar escape velocity was hard enough!


    Part of the goal is to examine rocks from Mars so that we get a better understanding of Mars, our solar system, and space in general. I think another part of the goal is to actually land a craft on Mars and then bring it back. Carrying all that extra fuel to reach Martian escape velocity is going to be expensive, but we need to know that kind of stuff.


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  6. Why don't they send battle bots? by Mr.+Flibble · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Really, with all the cutbacks in NASA, you would think that they would want to make a mission like this more popular - think about it - battlebots on Mars (just think of the lag time) - the suspense as pictures come back, the contestants make their move - and wait....

    On a more serious note it would be neat to have hobbyists designing bots for mars on a competitive level to see who can come up with the most efficent/reliable/lightweight etc design. The guys at NASA have great ideas and implementations - but I think that the bazzar vs cathedral idea could help here.

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  7. Haiku by 575 · · Score: 4, Offtopic

    Can't find terrorists
    Search earth, then the red planet.
    They hide under rocks.

  8. Re:Motto by ivan256 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People today don't have the stomach for what it would take to set up a sustainable colony on Mars with today's technology. In the 1700's when europeans crossed the Atlantic they lost numerous colonists and expiditions before one took. And that was going to a place on the same planet where they know had to potential to sustain life. Without further information do you really think we could make a perminantly sustainable Mars colony with todays technology, and not loose a single person? Imagine how fast people of today would can the project after they saw the deaths of the colonists on TV a few hours later.

  9. Misleading Article Title by PingXao · · Score: 5, Interesting
    This should be "NASA Would Like to Bring Back Martian Rocks". NASA would like to do a lot of things. Draconian budget cuts in recent years have put a major crimp in their style, however. They are currently not "planning" to do anything of the sort. They are simply groping about for a project that will let some of them keep their jobs by hitting on something that will engender public and Congressional support (and dollars). That's about as far in advance as their "planning" allows these days.

    It seems like every 6 months now they some out with some new "discovery" that turns out to be just a rehash of old science with a new twist. Truth is, if you think along the lines of timothy here, you could also say that:
    • NASA Plans on Sending Astronauts Back to the Moon
    • NASA Plans on Sending Satellite Fleet to Jupiter
    • NASA Plans on Searching For Life on Titan's Oceans
    • NASA Plans on Tripling Space Station Size
    • NASA Plans on New Hubble Replacement
    The list goes on and on. I love NASA, don't get me wrong, but the only serious stories worth looking at are the ones that start with NASA Receives Budgetary Committment From Congress For [insert project here]. That's the point where any serious planning really starts.
  10. Probes beat a manned mission anyday by gad_zuki! · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There's a limit to how much experimental equipment you can shove onto a Mars probe.

    Of course the price of one manned mission would equal hundreds if not thousands of probes which could cover many different parts of the planet with different objectives. A manned mission would be very limited in scope and certainly not worth the price.

  11. This is a good idea, but... by WolfWithoutAClause · · Score: 4, Insightful

    its a much better idea to bring back a near earth asteroid (NEA), or mine a near earth asteroid and bring back the good bits.

    Why?:

    a) NEA's are nearer
    b) mining asteroids can turn a profit (Mars probably can't)
    c) we can use ION drives to get there (like Deep Space 1 used), but they don't work to-from Mars due to the gravity of Mars
    d) there's no chance that we catch the never-get-overs (the asteroids should be dead)
    e) they contain useful stuff like water (steam is a fairly good rocket fuel in fact)
    f) getting lots of stuff from NEAs to orbit is looking cheaper than getting it from the earth, therefore it may be possible to send people to Mars using the fuel collected from NEAs; in the meantime we can turn a profit boosting satellites into GEOsynchronous orbit and such like...
    g) Basically Mars would be a white elephant right now. Cool as heck, but pointless.

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    -WolfWithoutAClause

    "Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"
    1. Re:This is a good idea, but... by styopa · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Sigh

      Um, you completely missed the point. We are not going to Mars to check if it is economically viable for mining.
      • We are going to Mars because that is the first step to becoming an interplanetary society.
      • We are going to Mars because it is like the Earth and can tell us more about our planet, and other planets in general. The scientific data that could be gathered from Mars is quite large.
      • We are going to Mars because it is cool. NASA needs something big to turn the heads of the population. They need public support.

      Why should we NOT go to a NEA?
      • Space mining at this point in time is unrealistic. From designing the equiptment to do the mining, to transporting the material. It is extremely expensive, and not profitable at this point in time. If it was I gaurentee that companies would be seriously looking into it.
      • Fly-bys of random NEA's are useful, but not nearly as useful as information from/on planets.
      • The public could care less about flying next to a random non-comet rock. In fact, it might even hurt NASA's image doing things that the public might consider a "waste" of public money.

      There is a huge push for Mars because the public is interested in it, and the Government is interested in it. In general they are not interested in NEAs. Successful big missions to Mars will provide NASA with the support it needs to do more minor missions like fly-bys of NEAs.
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