Keith’s note: With regard to Mars Sample Return, Bill Nelson said today that “$11 billion for Mars Sample Return and waiting until the 2040s to get a sample back are both “unacceptable” … “What to do? I have asked staff to reach out via RFI to JPL, industry, to all NASA centers to report back this Fall an alternate plan that get samples back quicker and cheaper and stay within budget limits that Decadal Survey said we should.” More: NASA Sets Path to Return Mars Samples, Seeks Innovative Designs

Keith’s note: Mars Sample Return, however well-intentioned and lauded by advisory committees, has been tossed around and modified and rescheduled so many times that it is no longer clear what it should do – or if it is even needed. It has always been somewhat gospel that NASA would not send human crews to Mars until a sample return mission had allowed the question of current life to be addressed. The current scenario has a Mars sample return to Earth in 2033 and (one would guess) basic findings a year later. A decade ago NASA talked about sending humans to Mars in the mid 2030s. Now it is the 2040s. Given the increasingly slow pace and out of control costs with which NASA develops human spaceflight capabilities, in order to meet a mid 2040s goal, basic mission design and hardware development needs to happen shortly after the sample comes back to Earth. Add in recent JPL layoffs, private plans by SpaceX et al to simply go there regardless of a sample return mission, and China’s plans to do sample return sooner than the U.S., and the entire NASA Mars Sample Return paradigm has become hopelessly clouded and conflicted. Given incredible advances in nanotechnology and genomics perhaps it is time to consider in situ life detection missions that actually look for life instead of sniffing around the edges. Here is what NASA OIG said the other day:

• The trajectory of the MSR Program’s life-cycle cost estimate, which has grown from $2.5 to $3 billion in July 2020, to $6.2 billion at KDP-B in September 2022, to an unofficial estimate of $7.4 billion as of June 2023 raises questions about the affordability of the Program. Characteristics intrinsic to big and complex missions like the MSR Program are hard to quantify in estimates but can drive project costs upwards throughout development. These include fully understanding the mission’s complexity, initial over-optimism, a less than optimal design/architecture, and the team’s ability to perform to expectations. When developing its cost and schedule estimate for KDP-C, and as the MSR Program addresses its architecture issues, Program management must consider these intrinsic characteristics and not attribute past cost growth to just the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation, or supply chain issues.
• Additionally, MSR Program formulation is impacted by coordination challenges between NASA and ESA. While communication processes are formally documented and being followed, NASA and ESA are experiencing issues related to schedule transparency, asynchronous design progress, and mass allocation, which appear to stem from differing operational approaches, acquisition strategies, and agency funding mechanisms. The CCRS project team noted that significant progress has been made addressing interface issues between the two entities.
• The MSR Program recently acknowledged it likely cannot meet the life-cycle cost estimate and launch dates established at KDP-B. A September 2023 report by an Independent Review Board recommended the Program consider modifications to specific mission designs. Accordingly, it is critical that before the MSR Program is approved to proceed from formulation into development, viable alternatives to the Program’s mission architecture are considered—including mission launch and sample return alternatives—as well as the value of the samples returned, the Program’s schedule, life-cycle cost estimate, and the Agency’s historic leadership position in space exploration.

Keith’s note: You’ll never hear about this from NASA – but WBUR’s “OnPoint” program just covered the amazing saga of the Mars Ingenuity helicopter [Listen here]. I’ve listened to lots of space coverage – for a very long time – as a young boy and not so young adult. I have to say, “on Point” host Meghna Chakrabarti did a truly masterful interview with the Ingenuity team. Not only did she do her homework in advance, but she took the time to tease out the special little things from the team that made this little project a big success. More below.

Keith’s note: I was just on the BBC World Service talking about Frank Rubio’s new record on the ISS – and about the Moxie unit making oxygen on Mars. NASA’s press release about MOXIE
NASA says in its release that “MOXIE has generated a total of 122 grams of oxygen – about what a small dog breathes in 10 hours”. OK, so I am (was) an actual NASA space biologist once upon a time. As such I had a few opinions on this. Yes, I mentioned English bulldogs and suggested that they’d last a bit beyond 10 hours. I was on the BBC, so … [Audio]

Keith’s note: NASA announced a new Mars nuclear rocket ship thing today. Note that neither the symbol “$” or the abbreviation “FY” appear anywhere. Apparently this has to do with sending humans to Mars without SLS which Bill Nelson now says won’t happen until the late 2030s. I guess the NASA PAO art department will now need to come up with yet another infographic on how/when we’ll send people to Mars – with the dates all pushed to the right of course. Ask yourself this – if NASA took more than a decade and billions in cost overruns just to use existing stuff to make SLS how confident are we that they can create something wholly new like a nuclear propulsion system on time and under budget? They say: “NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced Tuesday a collaboration to demonstrate a nuclear thermal rocket engine in space, an enabling capability for NASA crewed missions to Mars. NASA and DARPA will partner on the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations, or DRACO, program. The non-reimbursable agreement designed to benefit both agencies, outlines roles, responsibilities, and processes aimed at speeding up development efforts.” more

Keith’s note: When we return to the Moon, and then move outward to Mars and beyond, the people who visit these strange new places will write entries in their journals (or blogs) about what they saw – and how they were affected by what they saw. The following was written more than a century ago in March 1904 during Shackleton’s Nimrod Expedition. A small group of explorers made the first ascent of Mount Erebus, an active volcano 12,450 feet high (3,790 m) in Antarctica. As you read this just imagine that they are about the rim of Shackleton Crater at the south pole of the Moon or a large volcano on Mars. More

Keith’s note: Growing up in the 60s We heard that we’d be “on the Moon by 1970”. Done. Then we heard “Mars by 1981″”. That morphed to “Mars within the next 20 years”. Then “early to mid 2030s”. Now Bill Nelson says “late 2030s or 2040s.” We’re making negative progress NASA. Just sayin.’ Hurry up Artemis.

"Two Ingenuity class helicopters will be used as back-ups to transfer samples to #Mars sample return ascent vehicle – @Dr_ThomasZ #Astrobiology — FYI this redundancy option would not even be possible if @sciastro John Grunsfeld had insisted that Ingenuity be sent to Mars. pic.twitter.com/UOvAcLmFrJ — NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) July 27, 2022

Organic molecules revealed in Mars’s Bagnold Dunes by Curiosity’s derivatization experiment, Nature Astronomy ” .. No amino-acid derivatives were detected. However, chemically derivatized benzoic acid and ammonia were detected. Mass spectra matching derivatized phosphoric acid and phenol were present, as were several nitrogen-bearing molecules and as yet unidentified high-molecular-weight compounds. … This derivatization experiment on Mars has expanded the inventory of molecules present in Martian samples and demonstrated a powerful […]

Keith’s note: On Wednesday I listened to Administrator Bill Nelson testify before a Congressional Committee. During the course of the hearing every single member chimed in about the importance of NASA to their state (and vice versa) and twisted Nelson’s arm for a site visit. As the hearing wore on it was obvious that this was all transactional – they people who give things to NASA want things from NASA. […]