Mars Sample Return Blues - Setbacks, Innovations, and the Search for Life With Leonard David

on this episode of this week in space we're talking about the Mars sample return Mission and it's in trouble stay with [Music] us podcasts you love from people you trust this is Twi this is this week in space episode number 107 recorded on April 19th 2024 Mars sample return Blues hello and welcome to another episode of this week in Space the mar sample return Blues Edition I'm Rod pile edor Chief badas magazine I'm here as always with Tark Malik the implausible editor-in chief of space.com implausible is right how am I still here you know well I just I'm always looking for adjectives with an I when I remember to and we're joined by the Clark Kent of space reporters the super Leonard David how are you sir I'm doing better that's good l graving illness to be with us today yes yes he is uh working through the Wilds of CO as we speak so we really appreciate you coming on for this uh rather urgent discussion before we start however I would like to ask our friends and listeners and beloved audience to please don't forget do us a solid make sure to like subscribe and all the other podcast goodies because we're counting on you for that and now a space joke from loyal listener me yeah are you ready I'm ready Rod I had a good space joke but I ran out of room ah it's a fun I love it oh we got single a single chuckle ler on the other hand is Stone faced it deservedly so okay I missed it I don't know what it was that's okay you didn't miss anything so audience please save us from yourselves send us your best work or most a different space joke at twist twit.tv and we'll be sure to credit you and add it for inclusion all right let's uh look at a couple of space headlines yeah we'll uh we'll save the the Mars sample return headline for for later because that's our discussion that's the big one but but we have dragonflies in space that's right that's right and this is this one's from space.com I think some of these are are from maybe all actually uh all yeah either SP or Leonard David or Leonard that's right that's right but yeah this this was a really exciting one to see uh this week because NASA officially you know after years of saying they were studying it they were planning to do it they were you know hoping to budget for it they have given the green light to the dragonfly nuclear powerered helicopter to Titan the the atmosphere enshrouded Moon of Saturn uh and this is really exciting because it means that in 2028 which is really not that far from now um the folks over at John's Hopkins applied Physics laboratory will put their their uh nuclear power drone on a rocket will launch it uh to Titan uh and will hopefully fly the friendly Skies uh that that methane sea covered world has and we will be able to ricono or Titan you know much more uh in much more detail than we did with the hyans Lander uh back in what was that 2005 January 2005 it landed right sometime after Christmas and um and uh it'll take a good long time to get there I think 2034 is when I when I saw that it's supposed to arrive uh so this is great this you know this means that the missions a go uh and that they're actually going to build the thing they're going to get it up there they're going to launch it on a rocket uh and we're going to hopefully see like what it's like and all of this was made I think much more possible from the success of the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars which may be one of our other headlines that we're going to talk about because you know that was a the first of its kind this is the kind of Big Brother of big sister followup to that uh to go farther further faster if you will uh on another kind of uh cloudy world that's right and uh it noted in the article that it will hop once every 16 Earth days or once per every Titan day which I thought was uh appropriate so that's pretty fast progress for something like that yeah and you've got this be counting on AI of course and you'll have this Mo this mobile laboratory that you can pop around and and and try different places you know uh see what the different locations like a big step up from hin which just kind of plopped on the surface and that was it that was you got what you got and you didn't get upset so stared at what it stared at all right and since you uh went ahead and gave us the transition we have new Clues to the demise of Ingenuity little bits of blades scattered around yeah blad plural this one is from Leonard's inside outer space plug so Leonard you know tip of the Hat to you but Leonard Leonard found these photos that NASA had on there and I think a video too it looks like uh of of folks by the way Leonard is Mars boy on Twitter I'm not sure if anyone ever knew that so Mars is in his he's written he's written like how many books about Mars um but yeah he's got these these new new photos where it shows kind of the the broken bits of of uh Ingenuity where you can see uh its resting place taken of course by the perseverance uh Rover itself and it comes also at the U uh on the heels of NASA actually bidding a formal fairwell to Ingenuity you know the mission team saying uh their last goodbyes uh it's not dead it's just kind of beeping around being a a stationary weather and Tech demonstrator right now um but these are kind of the last photos that we're probably going to see you can see uh in in the images there's like a rotor that's a good distance away on a different Dune so it was a pretty violent uh impact that kick those uh those blades off there in these images uh you can see multiple pieces of the the the the helicopter itself too so you know it's a it's a sad farewell that we can see it kind of in shambles now but at least it's live and and sending little beeps and saying hey I'm here here's what the conditions are like at my final resting place uh you know hopefully forever you know I heard that they have something like 10 years worth of of data space on the Rover uh it's or pardon me the on on the helicopter itself so if it does survive that long it has the memory space to hold all that data and maybe we can go get it later on with a mar sample return Mission Rod well and and just to be clear the the Rover would have to drive back to it to retrieve that data it's not powerful enough to talk to Earth exactly let me pop in there I'm not going to take credit uh really the uh maybe Mars boy but Mars guy is Steve Ruff at uh Arizona State University and he has a a video that he put together uh with another person providing some of those imagery and uh that yeah I was pretty pretty telling but Steve done a incredible job with his uh kind of overviews of of uh the helicopter crash and uh explaining kind of had of JPL about what what he saw in those images so uh the the typ for the space element to uh Steve Ruff at ASU all right and finally we have I I was going to say more news but I guess ongoing news on the Orion heat shield which has shown a little more erosion than they had counted on and just to set the stage for this they're still using avat which is the same material they used for the Apollo heat shields which worked brilliantly but it's applied in a different way and at least according to the Miss Mission manager when I spoke to years ago the formulation's a little different due to EPA regulations so we have kind of two culprits here we have a formulation change in the chemistry of the thing takes a lot longer to cure among other things and a very different much less labor intensive method of uh creating it than we did back in the 1960s yeah yeah and this is this is a feature story at space.com that Leonard actually put together for us thank you so much Leonard uh and so please chime in if I if I get anything wrong but you know that it's it's been a while since we had the emis one you know launch and and re-entry you know back in what was that 20 20 yeah Artemus one the the the 2021 right so um no but I mean we we did the first test flight in 2014 oh yeah but didn't we throw that that that capsule away this was the one that they wanted to keep they keep um and and so this was like the the big the big test of the re-entry from like lunar trip you know speed coming in at like um 25,000 mph what is that 40,000 uh kilm an hour uh a re-entry speed that they hadn't seen you know since the the days of Apollo and like the big ticket that came that that NASA pulled away from them is that while they have this as you mentioned this afot uh uh heat shield uh on the the bottom of the the capsule itself uh when they looked at it up close later they they saw yeah it did it did Char the way that we thought it was going to do but it also charred in ways that NASA wasn't really expecting they had uh more uh more of the material came off burned away you know from the the heat shield than they were expecting as well and they really kind of want to know why which is something that I think astronauts the four astronauts that are going to write Artemis 2 would also like to know would like to know to make sure that it's going to be okay now the spacecraft did survive uh you know just fine on the on the way back and uh so that gave them a lot of heart but they really want to understand this heat shield you know going forward because they don't want to just send one Mission and then like do extensive studies for years upon years they want to send a mission every year uh for it uh and it does seem like they are getting uh kind of closer to that although you know they did push the the uh aremis 2 launch uh back a year from like later this year to later in 2025 um so they want to get to the bottom of this understand it if they have to make any formulations or changes then they uh they want to make sure that they don't have to introduce anything that's too disruptive to the whole process that'll mess up all the other speculations but Leonard I mean are there other great greater concerns that you're reporting also turned you know this is just a it seems like it's a a cherry type of engineering problem on top of the the mission to get through um because they were fairly happy with it uh back in 2021 um but it's it's 2024 and they're still they're or 2022 pardon me and they're uh uh they're still uh they're still trying to get to the bottom of it yeah they're I think I wrote in there they hope to get the uh final final report out by Spring but I will tell you in my uh diving in on that story it took me months to get people to comment MH and the more that I didn't get comments back I kept thinking is there more to this than you know what the story is about is there something you know that we really have got to get I don't want to put people on a heat you know that we're not sure exactly how it works so that story was you know it took me a while to uh to get people to comment I will say the JSC oryan office uh did respond to my uh queries and that was to their benefit but I had a hard time working with the uh trying to find the contractors that actually did the tests mhm you know I wanted to I just all I wanted was pictures of the test and I couldn't I couldn't get those and uh over the months it got into I wonder what's going on with this story uh so uh I keep an eye on this I'm not uh lockie Martin at the 11th Hour did did uh come up with a good comment about what they uh were involved in there helping to understand the problem but let's see what the problem came out to be I mean how significant was it or wasn't it so yeah I don't want to put people on something we not sure how the heat shield works that's not a that's not a good thing 25,000 M an hour it goes real fast just just a point of detail you know if you ever burned a cork as a kid maybe I was more of a firebug than most of you uh it's kind of like that so the the heat shields designed to char that's the whole point and it's designed to ablate to a certain amount because the erosion of the heat shield is actually part of what takes the heat away besides the sort of plasma Bell it forms but you don't want material to depart unevenly or unexpectedly so that's that's I think what they're trying to track down all right we are going to go to a short break and we will be right back so don't take your heat shields anywhere this episode of this week in space is brought to you by Wick Studio uh you know when I set out to build my own website many years ago I started out with Wix and I've been a happy customer ever since it gives me the tools I need to do a responsible job on my own and you can go check it out at pile books.com and tell me what you think but for now instead of reading another let's be honest boring ad script Wick studio just sent me a new wildl looking website to scroll through and tell you about as you can tell I'm already excited because it's a space themed site I think they may have made this just for us okay let's see what this scrolly telling is all about here's an astronaut falling through the clouds now there's two planets that are crashing into each other look out and this text is popping up as I scroll that's useful it's telling me about the search for other species and now we're talking that's my kind of thing we've got a spaceship this is pretty amazing I feel like I'm actually in space and I like being there it's wild how you can do all this without using Code now it's your turn to lift off build your next web project on Studio the platform for agencies and Enterprises go to wix.com Studio or click on the link on the show page to find out more so Leonard uh just as a reminder of your your bonafides if you will um you've been covering space for I think 150 years now something that yeah yeah I was there you started I helped see aosi do his equations but you started in DC in the 70s is that right um 60s early 70s yeah okay well he's excited about about giving his career notes TR remember well let's just say Leonard's at the the top of the pantheon of space reporters we put that way no there's a lot of really great reporters and I'm just doing my bit of things that I'm interested in and luckily space.com uh uh still prints my my articles and I'm happy with that oh you're making me blush Leonard Mak me blush so I don't think blush Marsh it's okay well can I can I ask because a lot of your career has been looking at Mars you've written books with I think with Buzz with with National Geographic um about Mars um is there something about Mars in particular that captivates you as opposed to other you know space flight astronomy types of things that you've covered or is it just that it's that next planet over our next nor our next door neighbor that is forever Out Of Reach always 20 20 30 years away from us uh that that has uh so grabbed you well you know I I really think you know what really locked me in on Mars was uh and again I'm I'm old here but Walt Disney in the Tomorrowland series on TV there was a moment there you know where they did Life on Mars and they had really uh some wild ideas about what life was like on Mars and that that bolted me in pretty secure right in the 50s and then to see the uh Mariner series and you know we're getting out there and then Viking I I was covering Viking you know I was there when they landed Viking on Mars at NASA headquarters and uh I mean that was an amazing when you saw the first uh raster buildup of a picture from Mars and you got to see a rock and a foot uh you know one of the foot pads and uh it was pretty exciting times and uh just and then to to have met a number of the Viking um experimenters over the years was pretty exciting just so much there and we we need to go back and look at that data you know there's still debate about whether or not the Viking spacecrafts the two of them did find life and uh it it's still contentious and there's actually a growing community of scientists today that wonder whether or not we missed a queue there and we we actually found life it's great story we should point out we should point out real quick you said you were there to watch that raster image come that first one from from Mars that's for people who don't know what those raster images are it's a pixel by pixel filling in of every little little thing and it takes forever we just get pictures from Mars at the tip of our Tik Tok or whatever it is well so it was it it was built line by line from top to bottom left to right because it was a camera that had a swing mirror on it so it would it looked like a coffee can with a slid in it so it would swing top to bottom take a strip that would come back you know 10 minutes later however long it took at that particular distance then it would Notch over to the right do another swing Notch to the right do another swing but seeing that first picture from the surface another planet well Mars anyway was uh was truly extraordinary so let me just give a a brief background or to MSR if I might I'll make it really short and then we can kick off here so serious planning for for sample return started in the 1960s before Mariner 4 even flew past Mars which is pretty astonishing uh NASA was looking at this lockie Martin proposed a 15 ton vehicle which is large we're getting into the lunar module class here would have required one or two Saturn 5 launches to accomplish then Langley JPL Langley uh the NASA field center Langley and JPL studied in the Viking era in the 1970s about the same time the Soviet Union studied a huge two- launch system that was really complicated it's the days when their computers were kind of like electronic abacus you know they hadn't had a lot of luck with them so that was quite ambitious it was called Mars 5nm based on the N1 Moon booster which failed four times so that took care of that idea uh they looked at it again in 1979 but canceled due to technical challenges 1980s multiple NASA field centers worked on a proposal called called Mo Mars Rover sample return that was slim down to 12 tons JPL then proposed its own Lander Rover Mars descent vehicle system for the 199 s and and the beat goes on uh in 2005 NASA started talking with France and the European Space Agency towards something called exomars which unfortunately was cancelled because NASA had to pull out of it and finally we had Mars 2020 the perseverance Rover which is taking samples and I personally am still a little confused about how they're Distributing them some are left on the Rover some are being placed at a Depot and I thought others were being being left on site where they were gathered but Leonard may know more about that but that's what we're here to talk about today um is this this Grand Vision of bringing back rocks from Mars so what's our current status here Leonard um if I if I'm NASA I'm going to go confused you know I think I think Monday was a pretty telling uh diet tribe from NASA about you know how you know messed up everything is and uh you know everybody everybody's responding to this independent review board who pretty much uh put the kibos on the mar sample return as we now see it uh Nelson the NASA Chief you know on Monday pretty much said hey this doesn't make sense for 11 billion and and moving out to 2040 uh to return samples what are we going to do so they're going to open it up the industry and they're going to open it up to Academia and I've been here dozens of times and here we go again so there's something uh you know this this uh Mars sample return is sort of a uh a symbol for NASA and how things are going with the agency in at large uh so you got some really fundamental problems here and uh you know uh one fallback they keep bringing up it's in the dec you know it's in the dec it has to be done it's in the dec you know the way I look at it this Mar sample return was in the Dead Sea Scrolls I mean you know this thing has been going on forever uh it's we were either cut bait with this thing and move on and we just talked about Firefly and some of the exciting missions that are coming to look for life in other worlds uh is it time to cut bait with the sample return as we see it today um I'm almost livid you know with given what NASA came up with and uh they're going to have to be held accountable and I've been on the emails this morning there's a lot of people mad you have you haven't seen this story yet what the reaction from the community is going to be well the reactions to JPL have not been happy and it is worth reminding ourselves that uh as far as the United States is concerned they're the only people that have conducted successful Mars like land ings over and over and over and over again and are World beaters in that category so I think they're a little understandably dismayed and you know it's worth reminding ourselves that when budgets come in for NASA projects they tend to initially be low because that's what it takes to get Congress to give the nod because you know they're not always the most uh well-informed people on these things there can be some kind of kneejerk reactions coming from there and then the budgets expand they always have and always will if you look at web it doubled I think more than doubled actually so this is not unusual but the response was indeed unusual and we'll talk more about that in just a moment when we come back after the short break tar yeah so before I ask a question I wanted to kind of touch for our readers who may not be as in the loop as of course Leonard uh uh Leonard is um a lot of the things that Leonard was talking about is why we're talking about the mar sample return uh as a a subject with Leonard this week to understand what's happening because on Monday as we're recording this um NASA had a press conference with Bill Nelson the NASA Chief and and others to essentially say that they've completed an independent review of their plans for Mar sample return another another one like the latest one sample return yeah uh which which as of now was estimated as Leonard pointed out to cost 11 billion and uh and not even be able to get samples back by until 2040 that's a long time from now and you know a a 2020 estim was something in the order of of $2.5 to3 billion that tells you how big uh the cost overruns have been for the mission and uh Bill Nelson basically said look um it's it's too expensive that's the bottom line he actually said the bottom line is 11 billion is too expensive that's a direct quote uh and he was saying something on the order of like maybe five to seven billion uh is what they want to see now and uh and some you know to get samples back these what these these dozen or so samples that uh curiosity perseverance dropped on the on the surface back uh before that 2040 time frame so that's kind of U the the nutshell that has really shaken everything because they've designed the mission already you know with a a Lander that has a a solid uh rocket inside it that will you know in a Rover to go collect the samples put them in the rocket launch them back into space an Orbiter to catch them bring them back here re-entry capsule to you know bring them back to Earth all that stuff uh and now they have to kind of figure out how to half that cost but Leonard why why has it why are we here again right you just said that you're livid that you've been in this position before uh and as Rod just pointed out uh these types of you know the discussion for wanting to do this has been going on for decades upon decades upon decades so it's not a a surprise what capabilities are needed it's just a matter of how to implement them it would seem and yet here we find ourselves after years of development uh having to rework the whole mission and and wait who knows how many more years uh to get to get it off the ground it just seems like a bit of groundhog the I don't know is that what you're referring to a bit there yeah it's a deju all over again you know that kind of thing now we're we've been here many times and uh this one seems more dramatic to me as the timing uh goes down the road and uh one thing that doesn't come up out of this is you know we we're talking jobs you get the California delegation going and trying to defend JPL and jobs jobs they already lopped off 500 people many that were associated with the mar sample return program and contractors and this kind of thing um and so you're you're kind of wondering whether or not this project should be done and why do we why are we doing it is it something um you know that is a necessary item in our uh uh portfolio of progress about exploring Mars and you start asking people okay let's just kill the program and so you don't want to kill Mars exploration so what do we do now and I I haven't heard that yet I mean NASA's suggesting that somehow we're going to find some dollar levels over the years and still get a maror sample return program well you know and I know samples are really important to the community because we've seen it over and over again there's no question in my mind that samples from another world in the lab with new equipment that you can't haul to Mars it all makes sense yeah you can but should should this be a uh a given to the human exploration of Mars do we just forget the robotic side of it or we launch uh much more dedicated life science detection missions if that's what we're trying to find I'm tired of hearing about is there life on Mars you know I don't want to hear about it anymore you know let's find it or not find it or whatever we got to do to convince ourselves that we've either detected it or we didn't detect it there's so many bad things that it's not there proving that is going to be impossible so can you haul to Mars life science detection equipment and the answer is yes you can do it on site it also breaks the chain of worry about Andromeda Strain uh coming back with a robotic Mission and it goes out of control and we got people uh d in Utah or something of space plague oh yeah there's just so many little uh you know off things going on here that uh uh conspire to implode the whole program and uh you know the one cost number that we have not yet heard is let's say the robotic Mission does happen how much is that return sample facility going to cost to do the analysis that hasn't shown up yet I I Somewhere Out There studies and they've got them going but how much is that going to it's a CDC for extraterrestrials you know it what is it going to be it's going to be a a biohazard level 19 laboratory if it's going to happen at all yeah so you know there's other considerations here too which have been brought up by the the science Community one is that the places that uh something like perseverance can s which tend to be the floor of the crater and and and maybe a little bit of sedimentation could provide fossil evidence of life but it's unlikely to provide anything currently living for a whole bunch of reasons one of which is it s been sitting out there bathing radiation for a billion years yeah and of course these samples are going to be sitting in these titanium tubes for at least a decade before they're grabed there's a lot of I wouldn't call them downsides but there are limitations to doing it the way we're doing it and if if you're really looking for living things you're probably talking about deep drilling probably near water maybe looking at some of the Lava Pits or lava tubes where these things are sheltered or at least prominent Rock overhangs which for the most part isn't what they've been able to do so far I would also add um that one of the recent developments tar which I think was in one of your stories was I couldn't quite get a full bead on it but it sounds like they're either they've canceled the idea of a of a fetch helicopter at least for now paused it let's say and maybe even of a fetch Rover because they're estimating that perseverance will be robust enough to drive back to wherever this vehicle would come down this uh the sample grab uh return vehicle and be able to uh made up with the Rover and just pull what's out of its its onboard cash which you know back the backup samples that it has yeah makes an awful lot of sense and finally I would just add that there are also those including our own p SC who pointed out well it would be very cool to have current surface samples we have pieces of M Mars on Earth we have 3 something like 350 identified meteorites that are clearly you know things bits of Mars that got knocked off by a collision and came here so while they're far from pristine having traveled through space for God knows how long before they re-entered at high temperature we do have Mars minerals so it's it's I think more about soil chemistry and like Leonard said possible Organics that we might find that would make this interesting um so Leonard I think one of the things you written about and the that we hear a lot about is this Mars Ascent vehicle this appears to be a major trip wire in this whole thing because of mass and complexity because basically you have to land a rocket on Mars you have to you have to land this thing on Mars that can rocket back up to orbit and then it's got a rondevo with something else in orbit that's going to bring everything home and apparently this is a lot harder than than we might think right well that's you know they spent already a pretty good chunk of money on uh lobbing that thing off the Lander and then air igniting the uh the vehicle uh with the samples already in there and getting them up yeah so it's kind of like a Polaris missile right it pops up locky Martin and northrip and uh they got involved in this and they are using some of the uh that kind of technology I will say the the looming thing is back to China and it's also uh exomars is going to go by the European space agency and I talked to the head of the Issa at the Symposium and he's very excited about drilling down two or three meters with exomars and and uh and and looking for life so it's it's a drill baby drill scenario you got to go down you know if life is there subsurface is exom Mars still going or you talk about the Chinese Rover and it's well both the Chinese Ro Chinese you know they're looking at I think the last thing I heard was 2030 and the here's let mean before I forget what not showing up in China literature yet is what are they doing about back contamination I've not seen one iota about what and you know that you know we don't want the Wuhan lab U scenario for Mars we got to understand what they're thinking about when they bring samples back um exom Mars is on uh NASA is going to be uh providing the launcher and the uh uh retro rocket engines and a power pack nuclear power pack so uh that's what the ISA guys said so we're we're supposedly in pretty good lock step on exomars as a robotic Mission from Europe and that mission's been delayed very it's it's not confusing at all that that exomars mission has been delayed of course because it was originally going to fly on a a Russian rocket and then Russia invaded Ukraine and they they scrapped all those plans but now they've got a a Rover uh and Lander with no no ride and so they're look they're they're they're able to to come up with different plans uh for that there too so all right well we will be back with T's next brilliant question after the short break so hold your breath Leonard I wanted to kind of go back to something that you just mentioned earlier about does it matter where we do sample per turn you know uh you know s we we've been talking a lot about Mars sample return on Earth and uh and you know NASA has that that whole Aries facility for astrom materials at the Johnson Space Program uh Space Center uh where they they just recently got I think some samples from the Osiris Rex asteroid benu um and they got those ones opened can you imagine getting samples from Mars and not being able to open the container like they did with with benu so those screwdrivers I know I know so so it's but but you said something that I I was surprised to hear was that the the types of instruments that we have now that we would use to analyze Mars samples on Earth that we could in fact get them you know with the crew on onto the surface uh of of Mars and so I'm curious what what are the key fundamental types of gear that you you're hearing from the scientists that they want to test and then just kind of as a caveat we've we've talked about all these tantalizing that perseverance put together but they want these astronauts on Mars to look for water and it seems like that's a better place to look in the ice for signs of Life anyway uh you know to to get the samples there so why not just go straight to do that because on Earth you know where there's ice and water there's like Little Critters and bacteria and all sorts of stuff life you know teeming in that stuff yeah well I think you know with the with the a little bit of money I think you know you put it out out there and ask people what are today's Technologies from Micro Devices to perhaps slam dunk a finding on Mars itself about life I mean what would would it would take and and again I want to go back and I agree with everybody it's great to have the samples back in the lab I agree it's now we're just talking about it with they be returned by humans would they be returned by robotic craft could we how much can we do on the surface to better understand the conditions of Mars and whether you have to drill and and and do that kind of analysis or not so you know all this has been always in the background for decades it's been going on forever um I was fortunate to know Gil lein you know one of the principal uh Viking scientists who you know before he died I mean he was seriously you he was adamant about his life detection did what it was supposed to do it detected life you know his experiment worked and he it's been an uphill battle since he uh since he uh started talking about that and you know again more people seem to be looking at other things that may have been detected by that experiment and perhaps he was correct so we got to go back and look at that Viking data but that that that seems to to make the point you know Steve Squire has said this is kind of a follow-up to that uh that all of the amazing stuff that spirit and opportunity those Rovers those long lived Rovers you know 90 days but they lasted for years you know decade even for opportunity um all of that stuff that they were able to accomplish like an astronaut a human scientist could do it so much faster with the gear on Mars and find it you know for for for Gil's experiment they could go and oh you know I'm going to double check that you know I can go and and and and and solve it right then and there instead of be you know be wondering for for decades to follow so it it seems to like the average person looking looking in that we should just be doing that first I mean I I'm all for getting samples from from anywhere I love I love the idea of of of getting that stuff back and I know it's insanely difficult but it it seems like if you really want to get it done and get it done fast then just commit and get everything else that you need I mean there's more there's more complications in sending people because you have to keep the people alive and you got to keep them safe and you got to keep them fed and healthy so that they can do the science when you get there and that is not a small task I totally get that but from the terms of getting the science done quickly and getting those samples in a lab uh that you can be fundamentally I I guess secure and that it is kind of clean and without contamination it seems it might be easier to set up a control room or a clean room on Mars in an already sterile spacecraft environment then add so many different layers of transfer for the V I think you hit on it right up front there is that why not go to the ice I mean where you know Mars is so Diversified with so many great areas to explore I mean if that's a driving thing I mean you know is it the search for life or are we trying to become a multiplanetary species you know I mean there's a dichotomy there in a in a weird way I mean there are people that are just want a lawn to succeed and let's go colonize Mars then you have the Life on Mars people you know is there life on Mars is template for everywhere else or is it unique to Mars is it our life that's gone ay or done something different on Mars yeah um are we the Martians I mean you know how many times we can write all all this stuff over and over again uh and you know meanwhile people down here on Earth are finding all kinds of microbes and weird places that they shouldn't be and it seems like life is pretty tenacious and I wouldn't you know I always felt that everywhere we go if we don't find life it' be odd just going to be weird and to try to it's like study you know how do you prove there's no life in the universe uh how do you prove there's no life on Mars maybe it's hidden maybe it's over there maybe it's not there um there's still debating whether or not the um you know these little uh channels are uh water spouts coming out uh is that should we go there talk about in we already got the scientific Community um um you know kind of creating a matrix of Mars of like don't go their places oh maybe we explore there or we use a helicopter to fly over um you know so we we you know it's exciting but it's also as I get older I'm getting more and more um you know distraught that you know that somehow we can't sort this out and uh it just becomes a you know again I don't know how many times you can write these same damn articles over and over again of you know is there life on Mars apparently quite a few if they pay us for that uh I just want to clarify a couple of things uh when Leonard's talking about you know is is Mars life Earth life and that kind of thing we've talked about this on the show before it's the pans spermia idea that life may have migrated from early Earth to early Mars or more likely in most opinions like since Mars settled down atmospherically and environmentally before Earth did in this development that life might have uh begun there and traveled to Earth on on meteorite fragments so forth knock off of the planet so that's that uh the other thing I want to clarify is uh for Gil lavine's experiment that Leonard referen this was one of three or four life science experiments on the Vikings pretty simplistic by today's standards but basically they would take samples of Marson regolith soil and put various uh nutrient broth or water in them to see what happened and then measure what might Outcast from it and of those experiments Lin was the only one that showed a significant reaction it was a very fast ramp up and a fast Decay and uh did not repeat so the general consensus led by Nory Norman Horowitz who was not historically my favorite figure in that drama um was that it was just soil chemistry and it was probably something like P chlorate reacting and we did later in I think 2008 with Phoenix Mars Phoenix confirmed that there is peor in the soil so that makes a certain amount of sense but there's all kinds of people that are way smarter than the three of us put together that looked at it and said well I'm still not convinced you know I think this might be microbiology at works so so that seems to be an open question I did want to mention before we uh lose track that who the foreign challenges are and what they're proposing so of course China because they are very well budgeted uh still less money than NASA as far as we know but significantly more than they've had in years past being invested in this and they plan longterm which we have trouble with um is uh planning a Lander Rover sample return mission called 1013 uh Japan is planning a mission that would go to Phobos and grab samples so that's primarily you know unless there's a real surprise waiting there that's primarily looking at geology and planetary formation so forth It's not a life science Mission and good old Russia which has yet to successfully land something that would operate on the Martian surface uh has been talking since 2011 about a two-stage architecture with an Orbiter and Lander and return vehicle but no Rover so those would be static samples as near as I can tell um good luck guys it's h been a far stretch for you so far um so uh let's come back after this next break and talk Leonard about Starship because we seem to have opened the door and invited without specifically saying so a lot of people think what Nelson was basically doing was kind of throwing open the door to SpaceX saying hey can you please do this with your gigantic rocket and take 13 lead Rovers up to Mars and let them go gather samples and bring them home with only 150 orbital refuelings no I just made that last we will be right back we will be right back standby so Leonard what what do you think about this uh possible SpaceX to Mars idea not not not in Broad terms I mean specific to this sorry oh for the mar I haven't picked up any Vibes on what Alan and comp might uh they've been looking at this they had a thing called uh didn't they have red Mars or what do they call Red Dragon red dragon dragon yeah yeah that way back so you know and uh Martin what was his name Worster he was running around at conferences and I listened to you know uh they're trying to identify a place that they could land and would be near water so they you know but I don't know you know it's great again the artwork is great the artwork is great but I I if only artwork would get us there right yeah well I love artwork and you know I like to write but I think the artwork speaks volumes um but uh you know we'll see how Alan does on uh you know if he gets to the Moon with the Starship that would be a that'd be a a positive thing I would think so that's very subtly but well he did tweet out after uh Nelson's press conference he did tweet out something I don't have it written down specifically here but something to the effect of uh yeah we can do that it's easy yeah I'm paraphrasing here a bit but it Ain easy and and that huge vehicle you know as you point out we still have uh we have to see it there's some challenges there land on the moon but it's got to make orbit and be able to come back and so forth so yeah that would be I mean the cargo capacity is Sensational if the thing works you could take I mean ultimately you would be taking people to Mars but you could take a whole Squadron of robots that look like Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still and could walk around and pick up whatever samples they wanted St their pockets and bring them home just like Neil Armstrong building those robots too Nelson wanted Innovation and you know I'm sure you know let's ramp it up and and I hope SpaceX gets a A proposal in there of how to do this and uh you know uh you know it' be great if aan can pull that together I just you know at the end of the day you know if this is a mileston making Enterprise uh you know after a while in history uh let's let's see how these private concerns can do and uh you know Nelson uh threw open the door uh not not only to uh you know Alan and all those guys but uh other groups like uh I expect uh people like Applied Physics lab I expect uh other other other groups that are known for Innovation to come up with some good ideas and if it's a jobs program that's one thing you know if we're going to try to save JPL or is that the is that the mandate um what is it we're trying to do here with this sample return and there are people that I've talked to that could care less if China brings back the samples uh Mars is so again diverse um that you know we got a long road to go with Mars exploration and and Mars is wide open for all kinds of Landing sites and uh recovery of material from those areas well bring up a really good point which is does it really matter who brings back the first rocks uh well some people are you know I mean I I just saw Lou fredman had a nice uh editorial in uh space news and you know a little bit of a flag waving thing you know you're loss of American leadership and this kind of thing and that's fine I mean there are people that uh you know you know Europe and America leading the charge and bringing samples back from Mars is that is that really uh and at what cost and uh you know what gets deferred um you know because I don't even I don't even know what kind of numbers we're going to be talking about a year from now MH they probably be wrong because then you get into the test program and things go right right and you you wind up needing more money for these things and so um yeah it's it's definitely a shakeup time and you know you know we're Beyond wakeup call yeah this is this is this is a ultimate room service that's required here uh to clean out U the the bugs of the past and and try to stamp uh together a program that makes sense given budget reality and uh and Leadership and all the other things you want to on the wall yeah I I meant to ask Leonard um and but by the way uh you asked uh you asked Rod about if it doesn't matter if it isn't us there is at least some precedent now with China opening up samples of the moon's far side right to to uh foreign foreign scientists too so so we've seen that cooperation although it did take several years for that Pro like that that sharing uh to take place um and I can see there'd be a much bigger Scramble for s from Mars to any country uh that that is able to bring them back first but what you mentioned earlier about about kind of cleaning house Leonard it really struck me uh of a similar vibe from 2019 when Mike Pence stood in front of the National Space Council and said you know that the the aremis program at that point was so far off track they had to to get it back on track you know quote by any means necessary and and here you know here we are with another mission that uh they're saying they want to to that it's off track and they have to get it back on you know you know through new innovation you know and and some other uh kind of uh not a Magic Bullet but like a a a non-nonsense bullet if if you will and and we we saw it we saw it when um to a lesser extent when they canceled AMS but you know the the alpha magnetic spectrometer no we're not going to do that even though we've already built this billion dollar device for the International Space Station and they eventually you know Green lit an extra space shuttle mission to deliver that before they retired the program and James Webb too you mentioned that you know so far over budget so many missteps and mistakes in the testing and everything that they had to do things over and over again um and and yet even though it was so far over budget they did get it up there it went okay uh I think more than okay when they deployed it and it's it's returning uh really good science and will continue to do so so the the payoffs and the challenges we've seen in so many other programs and it it it feels like we've seen uh we've seen them go one way you know kind of like the the the the good way with James web where they had all these tribulations they came out on top the SAT the space the Space Telescope is up there doing amazing science and then we had the really uish uh experience of trying to build a moon rocket you know in 2004 you know with with the Aries program and watching watching that that program devolve to the point during the Augustine Commission where they say Hey you could build your moon rocket but not be able to land on the moon or you could build your Lander and not have a rocket to get to the moon you know you have to pick one right now and and it's a no- wi scenario and then they had to really go back and and and and like revise everything you know to to get to emis one in 2022 uh when they got there so it seems like there's two different ways that it can go and and I'm I'm wondering is it too early to know which way this whole MSL Mar samp will return uh uh MSR I keep saying MSL so um uh is going to go or or or do do you think that the trend will be towards the positive that they will mean je proportion Le there are smart people there uh that they dare might anything I think I think actually I'm wearing I didn't mean to but I'm wearing laboratory so um uh I mean is it too early to see how that's going to go or is it is this I can tell you just from just this morning you know get ready this is going to be a free-for-all oh man the science Community is upset uh they didn't like what NASA came up with I think they're going to have some statements coming and so it's going to be a real uh bare knuckle um activity from here on uh but you you gota you got to back away from you know how to do it to the question should we do it and at what expense and at what cost is it going to be other programs as you know our whole search for Life question that's partially D driving this Mar sample return is already open to other worlds and how much is that going to be a part of the future of NASA so yeah there there's just some really uh uh Dynamics here that's going to be very you know for reporters it's great CU total confusion work you know I love it I love the yelling yeah I know let's get that going but you know you know and maybe it's time to bring back a Mars Zar I mean there's going to have to be you know Scott Hub played that role uh when we had a multiple failure at Mars and he Cobble together a great program and um and Scott is still very much engaged in the background of trying to understand the Dynamics of where we're going to go and how we should go and and why we should go so um yeah it's it's it's a really uh a crazy time for Mar sample return and uh you know I mean it's Scott hub's even gotten back to U you know did we look Starship one thing maybe we should go back and look at the uh the Senate launch system and you know how much capability that has you know to do a all-in-one Mission you know and he means the space launch system dear dear you get all those people upset you know the uh the Starship people and whatever but you know it I I do think think you know somewhere in this we need to get back to a lower cost Mars exploration program M that doesn't fly out the window uh budgetarily and to me that's getting back some very good ideas a JPL have had on Landing small spacecraft multiple mini Rovers you know and get to the issue of uh of you know is it the life on Mars question is still driving everything are we trying to satisfy geological questions about the origin of Mars I mean what is it that we're trying to get to and so yeah it's just there's just so many angles here um and I wish I uh you know could uh write the penultimate article but yeah I think we're too early I think you're going to see the science Community coming back at Nasa not happy um there are other people that are really beside themselves of what happened on Monday so um do you is is there a fear Leonard of slipping into a a faster better cheaper mentality that led to a lot of very like embarrassing failures you know during the the Golden Era at Nasa in the 90s you know where you've had you know spacecraft you know missing the planet entirely because of like like a a metrics thing or or or the Mars polarlander you know cring into it because uh of of this mistake or not or and this is the this is this is the second part of this question is there an Embrace of that like what we've seen with the Artemis program where they launched 10 different other spacecraft on the Artemis One mission and they said NASA did at the go goget hey these are cheap spacecraft they may not all make it but if they do if one or two does hey it's like gravy you know for it do is that the kind of mentality for Mars that can get get more things done in a faster way with this new Embrace of commercial industry to say hey there's there's a big piece of pie there for whoever can get it and build a spacecraft that gets it because that seems like a a fundamental shift in Mars but that they're already testing at the moon right now well you know you're asking questions and I wish I had an answer you know yeah the well going I don't want to get into the cubat Fiasco that was on the um first SLS you know that to me is a you know also mirrors a little bit of where we are on Clips with the moon you know uh you know anyway uh yeah we got some issues there on just low cost and what that means it doesn't mean failure is an option you know and that's in some ways they're saying that you know failure is an option unfortunately this is a weird thing and I think uh you brought it up there about uh after a while with Jim Web James Webb Space do being so successful people forget the cost and you know but God help them if it failed yeah they'd be on the rails you know and um special investigation yeah how many mishap boards we got to have to have here and what do they they don't come cheap by themselves you know Miss boards are expensive we we're still waiting for astrobotic uh and their Clips land or what happened there and what the repercussions of that are um so uh you know um I don't know where I'm going here but it yeah low cost doesn't mean failur is an option U so I I think you know at the end of the day you want to have success and uh again JPL has done some really creative looks at low cost Landers Rovers and if you had a marsar trying to piece together a sensible program perhaps we can get back in the groove and not have to worry about Mars sample return as the end all Beall Mission and and I just like to to close on um and people know I'm kind of a JPL Fanboy I'm close to the organization but you know when you look at return on the money bang for the buck they've had a pretty spectacular history there is a lot of expertise contained up there and to steer project projects like this away from from that NASA Field Center seems to me to be a bit risky because eventually as uh the organization is forced to slim down due to budget cuts and in some cases lack of lack of missions you start losing a serious amount of Brain Trust because those people as we've seen with uh Mimi on who was the original chief of the Mars helicopter and others they go off to Apple and God I almost said Yahoo not Yahoo Amazon and Google and earn much higher paychecks and and we lose that part of the brain trust and it's worth pointing out jpl's the only NASA Field Center that is not employed as civil servants they're operated through contract with with Caltech which means it's a lot easier to start getting rid of people that they sound a little paranoid but it's just a fact and um you know I don't know how much that played into some of these decisions uh clearly their bid was expensive but you also have to wonder you know who's who's setting the parameters if you allow the organization to set its own parameters to say okay give me a low medium and high maybe you get a different answer than if you say Okay Congress ons X Y and Z tell us how much wait we can't pay that much so Leonard I wonder if you have any thoughts on just their position jpl's position in this because if this is taken away you basically have flying out europ a Clipper and a handful of other small missions and then there isn't much on the docket moving ahead for them well Lori uh you know Leon yeah Leon at heading JPL now I mean that was a tough this woman has had a rough you know year or so you know she got in there and uh had to deal with psyche issues and you know now we got Europa Clipper coming and getting that off uh and then she had to lay off 500 people and in talking with her I'm still not clear how that was uh delegated you know what what parts of JPL were uh cut uh you know she uh her comeback is always they didn't hurt any of the core capabilities of the of JPL okay what's that mean I mean what are the core capabilities one of them is Mars exploration right and so she is hard over in trying to maintain a a group that uh you know I'm I'm with you rob that they're amazing team out there it's a family it is a family kind of feel that you have at that that lab and um you you'd hate to damage that um you know they just got veritos back in the in gear on Venus and looks like that and neoe these are the things that NASA said well you know we're Nelson on Monday was talking about those programs while we're back with veritos and because we're going to cut the budget uh for MSR and so we're going to make those programs healthy but that it's just an erratic you know kind of situation to be in because it almost gets to the point that the more success NASA has proving its ability the more they get under duress you know they get up for it yeah you know what you know what is going on so they got what how much we're at 25 bill milon for NASA I mean whatever the number is it's one of the reasons I left you know Washington DC trying to follow those numbers it never was the money to me it was how well it was being spent and this is you know NASA is an agency is getting old and it probably needs a ShakeOut and you're going to have to find tune the field centers this this comes and goes I've been there in DC for 30 years every once in a while they going to they're going to have to look at the field centers and say okay are we up to Snuff with the 21st century you know uh and I'm not sure they are and you're going to have to have some really uh come to Jesus moments NASA as a social construct for the country about space exploration about its role as a diplomatic tool in the world community of nations of how space plays for America does it play well today with all the issues America has we're back to some really fundamental issues about space exploration and its value as a commodity for a country well and you bring up an extra point there that I'll close on which is this is kind of a soft power thing uh unfortunately for us place like China doesn't have to worry about operating under continuing resolutions and reduce budgets and and Inter agency squabbles so much I'm sure there's stuff like there that H like that that happens there but in general they plan long term they commit funds long term and they're achieving some pretty spectacular things uh you know with a lot of technology that was proven out here and in the Soviet Union years past but that's fair game so you know if it matters to us to remain leaders in this area with which the polls that we've talked about in the show many times Pew and gallop and others clearly show the American public supports over 50% it's when you start asking about specific things like do we need to find Life on Mars that it goes down into the low double digits be that as it may we'd like to thank you all for joining us today for episode 107 of this week and speed this week in space this week in speech the MSR Blues Edition don't forget to check out space.com the website is of course the name and the National Space Society at nss.gov.gh you know I appreciate the opportunity to talk one more time sorry I'm on a more of a rant this hey I'm with you he we love it we love it don't you worry you know every time you put something in Sp space.com Dr clickbait here will'll get you a groovy awesome title oh he gives a big sigh and of course it's not clickbait all right no I know I just love I love I love it because you hate it so much um car yeah where do we track you down G playing animal you you can find me on TW on well at space.com as always uh trying to find out the next the next the next big thing my my whole my whole personal experience about seeing the solar eclipse with my daughter at a university was is is the last story that I had there about how it was a teachable moment you can Google it teachable moment solar eclipse and uh you'll find it for sure um and uh and on Twitter you know uh just trying to share the space love and if you will be in suffer New York this weekend on Sunday I will be at the Northeast astronomy Forum uh finding out all the new goodies that are coming uh to night skies near you from Celestron and and me and all of those fun uh folks uh and uh and hopefully meeting up with our columnist Joe REO who we just had on the podcast talking about the eclipse so I can find out exactly how his Eclipse went in platsburg New York so looking forward to that pleas okay and you can always find me at file books.com or at as magazine.com and other Corners the internet please remember to drop us a line if you wish at twist twit.tv that's Twi twit.tv we welcome your comments suggestions ideas even criticisms I guess and uh I'll answer all the nice emails and I'll let tar answer answer all the other ones new episodes published every Friday in your favorite podcatcher so make sure to subscribe tell your friends to give us reviews we'll take multiple thumbs up or whatever you want also don't forget you can get all the great programming on the twit network ad free if you join Club twit as well as some extras that are 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Channel: This Week in Space

Views: 1,158

Keywords: Mars Sample Return, NASA, Perseverance rover, Ingenuity helicopter, Dragonfly mission, Titan, Saturn, heat shield, Orion spacecraft, Artemis, Bill Nelson, budget, cost, delays, Mars exploration, search for life, miniaturized instruments, international collaboration, competition, China, Japan, Russia, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, JPL, expertise, innovation, scientific objectives, technological capabilities, budgetary realities, Leonard David, Rod Pyle, Tariq Malik, This Week in Space

Id: jA572RHEE5M

Length: 72min 2sec (4322 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 19 2024