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Could Curiosity Rover Moonlight As Part of a Sample Return Mission?

Posted by timothy on from the be-grateful-for-infinite-resources dept.

pigrabbitbear writes "After recent budget cuts to NASA's Mars program, the agency's dream of a sample return mission within the next decade is dead in the water. But the $2.5 billion rover Curiosity is on its way to the red planet right now, and speculation is popping up online that it could fairly easily be retrofitted with the hardware needed to collect and store samples. Theoretically NASA would just need one more mission to collect and return those samples, turning Curiosity into the first phase of the sample return dream."

15 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. Cost by currently_awake · · Score: 3, Informative

    Most of the cost of a sample return mission is the launcher to get the rocks back into space. Compared to that a basic rover is cheap.

    1. Re:Cost by spokenoise · · Score: 2

      Send politicians. Sure there is a cost but the benefit of them being on Mars and u being here would be worth it. Cheaper than another war too!

    2. Re:Cost by khallow · · Score: 2

      Not really. Most of the cost will be development costs which traditionally can be just as expensive as the actual construction of the vehicle. My view is that reducing the complexity of the mission so that it just lands a vehicle (perhaps one which we already use on Earth), waits for and accepts an existing payload, and then returns it, is far less complex than the original sample return mission. That will result in substantially lower development costs which will be a significant savings of the overall cost of the mission. The missions would also have mass savings of various sorts from not having to bring along sample collection tools which allows for more performance margin in the return vehicle and various ways to cut costs without harming mission performance.

  2. Pathetic by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 3, Funny

    I know a mission to bring back samples from Mars would be a true engineering challenge, and I know sending people on Mars and back would be fantastically expensive for almost no appreciable scientific return, and I know the cold war is over. Yet...

    "The agency's dream of a sample return mission within the next decade". Sheesh. That's what NASA dreams of doing within a friggin' decade now? No wonder nobody in the US is excited by space exploration anymore.

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
    1. Re:Pathetic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think the US' lack of excitement by space exploration *is* the reason it will take them a decade.

    2. Re:Pathetic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Are you fucking KIDDING me? How could a manned mission NOT have MASSIVE appreciable scientific return? Transporting humans to the surface of another planet with a long voyage, keeping them fed, radiation free, healthy and happy. Actually performing more science in a few days than the rovers have in their entire history. The list goes on and on. Just the engineering of the space craft and habitat would have IMMENSE value to mankind. Let alone the vast amounts of technology that come collaterally from such endeavors.

      Its not wonder we don't do these things, because dipshits like you are making decisions out of stupidity and total blind ignorance.

      Lets just instead give trillions of dollars to billionaire gamblers (err, bankers). That does a lot for the world.

    3. Re:Pathetic by Osgeld · · Score: 2

      yep

      when we were in a race aginst the commies at the dawn it was exciting
      when we were making reusable shuttlecraft utilizing cutting edge technology it was exciting
      after 2 decades of essentially nothing hearing "but just one more mission and we can add shit to something that's almost already there" is not only not-exciting, but growing to be similar to avoiding someone who says that just some pocket change will drive his 14 year old V8 truck 2 towns over ... we both know better buddy

    4. Re:Pathetic by scottrocket · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The shuttle program was impressive... but exciting? I'm not so sure about that.

      For those of us old enough to remember being glued to CNN all night long, being disappointed when the mission was scrubbed-and then doing it all over again the next night, listening to John Holliman interview astronauts et al.about the future of manned space flight, watching the shuttle when it finally rose on flaming pillars-yeah, it was exciting. Absolutely. It almost didn't matter if it was the most practical vehicle or not, it was inspirational and of course, just cool.

    5. Re:Pathetic by demachina · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Its a circular problem because the "US lack of excitement" for space exploration is because NASA seldom does anything particularly exciting. The Shuttle and ISS were/are an exercise in tedious boredom, very expensive exercises too.

      Some of JPL's missions and some of the great observatory's are modestly interesting, almost exciting even, but they aren't going to capitivate the public.

      This submission seems a lot like the Saturn oxygen submission yesterday. I'm starting to think /. is the new forum for JPL/ESA/university teams to lobby for funding for their pet projects.

      A sample return mission would be an interesting technical achievement, but I seriously can't see the payoff being worth the expense. Curiosity is going to be able to examine samples in fairly considerable depth and probably in greater volume than a sample return mission. We also think we already have 99 samples from Mars from metereoites that were ejected from Mars and have landed on Earth.

      --
      @de_machina
  3. Accuracy and mass... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Several considerations come to mind:

    1. A "retrofit package" would have huge ratio of ancillary equipment to payload, which is highly inefficient in terms of spending the agency's small and shrinking budget.
    2. The most interesting part of Mars is (possibly wet or icy) underground, beyond the range of ultraviolet radiation, GCR and solar wind. Since Curiosity ain't fitted with a drill, this is again inefficient.
    3. There are no guarantees that the "retrofit package" lands accurately within reach of the MSL.

  4. Re:Why? by mosb1000 · · Score: 2

    You could put an electron microscope in a space probe. They're not that big. The trickey part would be sample preparation. But it certainly is doable.

  5. Getting a bit ahead of ourselves? by blind+biker · · Score: 2

    I'd wait till Curiosity lands without smashing itself into smithereens. That would be a great and somewhat unexpected success.

    http://youtu.be/xqqBy7C8gyU

    --
    "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
    1. Re:Getting a bit ahead of ourselves? by Bomazi · · Score: 2, Informative

      Do you know that the MERs lowered the landing platform on a cable, followed by rocket engine ignition and a brief hover period ? Do you know that, for some reason, it worked, twice, with no broken or tangled cable ?

      See it here (3:03 - 3:33).

      MSL uses the exact same technique, only it is simpler since after the cables are cut the rover is already on the ground. So the second part with the platform egress is not required. The only new elements are the detection of the touchdown and the fly away. The first has been extensively studied after the failure of Mars Polar Lander and the second is trivial. So no surprise there.

      In summary, the MSL EDL sequence is simpler than that of the MERs and almost entirely flight proven.

      Yet for some reason I see a number of jackasses like yourself who see the video and claim that it is too complicated. Maybe you could document yourself or (shockingly) admit that the JPL is not staffed by idiots.

  6. Re:Oh, NASA would just lose all the samples, again by khallow · · Score: 2

    Oh, and maybe there is some kind of life in that Mars soil, that we don't understand. So bringing it back, and spreading it around the world would be an absolutely grand idea.

    Ok, if you say so. I was thinking that maybe that wouldn't be a good idea. But you clearly have thought this out. I guess that's because you already know that Earth has been showered with meteorites from Mars for billions of years.

  7. Re:Why? by ironjaw33 · · Score: 2

    Finally, we can still study our lunar samples fourty years after they were brought back. Even if we had the capability to send a world-class lab to Mars today, we cannot send a lab from decades into the future.

    In 40 years, we will certainly have technology that will allow for much better analysis. If we bring back samples, we will be able to analyze them with whatever new tools and sensors are invented decades after the mission. It's definitely much easier than continuously sending out probes with better hardware.