NASA Wants To Bring Back Hunks of Mars In Future Unmanned Mission

coondoggie writes "The space missions to Mars have so far been one way — satellites and robotic rovers have all gone there to stay. NASA, as part a of a new, ambitious Mars visit, wants to change that by sending a rover to the surface of the Red Planet which can dig up chunks of the surface and send them back to Earth for highly detailed examination. These plans were laid out in a lengthy report outlining mission plans for Mars that will be acted upon over the next decade. It says a retrieval mission 'could occur as early as the mid-2020s or wait until the 2030s.'"

Comments

What could possibly go wrong?

[ColdWetDog]

An instructional video.

Phobos?

[Hentes]

Bringing back material from Mars's moons may be an easier first step.

Killer microbes

[Tablizer]

There is still risk of Martian microbes that Earth life has no immunity too. Sure, it's a very small chance, but one that has potentially apocalyptic consequences if it happens.

Perhaps the samples should be baked at an intermediate station.

do it before I'm dead of old age

[k6mfw]

I prefer a mission to Europa that includes a submarine to go into the water below the ice to take pics of the little fishies (if any). Yes, Europa is ****far more difficult**** than Mars. But a Mars sample would be cool, will provide excellent comparison to Martian meteoroids from Antartica. Now if we can also send somebody beyond LEO, then we can say (in the words of one of controllers at Houston MOCR after Apollo 8 TLI), "Finally we get to go someplace!"