From the article:
This cooperative program between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) is known as Mars Sample Return (MSR) and has been generations in the making. It’s the culmination of decades of planning by planetary scientists and many billions of dollars in government spending—the crowning achievement of Mars-focused interplanetary exploration efforts that began more than a half-century ago and still endure today.
Unless, that is, the Trump administration gets its way: on May 2 the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) dropped a budgetary bombshell, proposing to cut NASA’s top-line funding by a quarter, slash the space agency’s science budget by nearly half and entirely eliminate MSR. The cancellation is justified, the OMB document claims, because MSR is “grossly overbudget” and its goals of sample return will instead “be achieved by human missions to Mars.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trump-budget-calls-for-stranding-nasas-mars-samples-on-the-red-planet/
16 Comments
We should fast track a human mission to mars, with Elon leading it. The farther away he is, the better.
One small man, one giant leap back for mankind.
Is there hope that the European side will be able to pick up the slack? Because, from my understanding, there are some very, very promising samples on Mars that may hint at life.
I thought the plan was to let commercial companies bid on it? I mean shouldn’t that be explored first before an outright cancellation? At least so that every bit of development effort put into it isn’t just immediately wiped away, so there is a chance to get something from it??
>I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance…
-Carl Sagan
Leaving the sample stranded? Surely not the rescuer he is.
Guess the new astro lab at JSC they are building will be for nothing, then?
Okay, let’s be honest here manned missions to Mars are not going to happen within the next two decades. It’s just not going to happen.
Cannot cut funding for NASA and expect them to also go to fucking Mars with humans. They need every penny they can get. Like ten times more to start.
[Aged like milk. ](https://www.newsweek.com/buzz-aldrin-endorses-donald-trump-presidential-election-1977470)
Fair. We’ve messed up so much on this thing. Once the Chinese came out with their idea that was faster and less expensive this was trash
Honestly wish we could ban companies with conflict of interests from getting government contracts. It’s such open corruption. NASA should cut all ties with space X and space X should be barred from any further NASA contracts until Elon gets his finger out of the pie or severs all ties from space X
I’m sorry but the Mars Sample Return program is so fucking stupid. I mean, from an engineering and human feat perspective, it’s quite cool. But from a budget / schedule perspective, it’s a nightmare. It was supposed to be finished by 2023, now it’s return by 2030 at earliest. Was supposed to cost 3 billion, now it’s projected to cost *11 billion*. It’s been through multiple redesigns and NASA hasn’t even decided what the final return vehicle will look like yet, much less started building the thing.
At some point you have to cut your losses. Especially since most of the science that can be done on rock samples can be done remotely via rovers, and there is a company proclaiming very publicly they intend to send people there within approximately the same timeline.
I like N.A.S.A. and I don’t like the White House anymore; and I’m going to fire a loser the next election.
I want him kicked where the sun don’t shine. Space stuff is one of the only things that give me hope for the future, and this clown is just dismantling all forms of research.
That doesn’t even make sense. Just bring the sample back so we can learn more before we send humans there…
Why do I have a feeling that SpaceX will be given funding to do this…