NASA announced today that it is abandoning its longstanding plan for ferrying rock and soil samples from Mars to Earth. Instead the agency will seek proposals for quicker and cheaper ways to deliver the samples to Earth. An independent review board concluded last year that NASA's Mars sample return mission could cost as much as US$11 billion, more than what it cost to launch the James Webb Space Telescope. In a report released today, a separate NASA review team concluded that even if the agency spent that much money, the dropoff of the samples on Earth would be delayed until 2040. The agency had originally sought to land the samples on Earth in the early 2030s. The $11 billion price tag is 'too expensive,' said NASA administrator Bill Nelson at a press briefing, and 'not returning the samples until 2040 is unacceptable.' Nelson said the agency 'is committed to bringing at least some of the samples back' and later said NASA would return 'more than 30' of the 43 planned samples....
learn more
