Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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."

6 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.

  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 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.

    3. 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.