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

Posted by Soulskill on from the live-at-red-rocks dept.

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.'"

6 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. For the swimsuit calender? by kk49 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Whaka Whaka

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    You can have your god back when you are old enough to handle the responsibility.
  2. What could possibly go wrong? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 3, Interesting

    An instructional video.

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    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  3. Phobos? by Hentes · · Score: 3, Interesting

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

  4. Good idea by Nidi62 · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's a shame, however, that the load of rocks on board will have to be removed so that Val Kilmer can make it safely off Mars so he can get some sweet, sweet Trinity action. And remember, never send any military surplus drones to Mars!

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    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  5. Re:Killer microbes by able1234au · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Almost zero. Mars rocks have been hitting earth for some time and in any case microbes have to evolve to infect humans, it is not something likely to happen for a mars microbe. In any case they will use the same quarantine process they used for the moon rocks and in that case the microbes would have had to have been very hardy to survive vacuum and solar radiation, yet they still quarantined them. So you can be sure the risk is close to zero.

    On the other hand we have enough risks here on earth that we don't jump up and down enough about. Still, the power of the unknown risk freaks people out more.

  6. do it before I'm dead of old age by k6mfw · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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!"

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    mfwright@batnet.com