Should we get samples from Mars?
NASA’s Perseverance rover has been collecting Martian rocks for the eventual return to Earth in the 2030’s but that plan is stuck on the ground. Scientists want to get their hands on Mars rocks here on Earth and the Mars Sample Return mission aims to deliver those samples to those scientists. But concerns have been raised about the cost of the mission and its timeline.
Space industry analyst and founder of the consulting firm Astralytical, Laura Forczyk, said these concerns aren’t just about planetary science, but rather pollical science.
“We’re seeing a lot of disagreement within Congress -- even more than usual -- which means there is going to be less of an understanding of what the budget is going forward,” Forczyk said.
Because the sample return mission involves robots and not humans on the surface of Mars, Forczyk said it is more difficult than some of our other sample return missions, like the Apollo missions.
“What we're seeing is the complexity, and the design challenges really delaying the program. It is delayed now more than a year, it has ballooned in cost,” Forczyk said. “It's gone from approximately $2.5 billion, that was the estimate from four years ago, to now over 10 billion even over 11 billion perhaps is the latest unofficial estimate from the independent review last September.”
Living like a Martian
NASA is searching for volunteers to live in a Mars simulator on Earth for an entire year to see what it would be like for a crew to live and work on a simulated Mars.
So, what’s it like to be away from the outside world in a replica of another planet?
Sharife Gacel, the Founder and Director of The Space Therapist and NASA JPL Solar System Ambassador is a previous participant in an analogue astronaut mission. Her work during her mission was to study the minds of her crew and how the mission affected their mental well-being.
“I went in with trying to measure what's called the overview effect,” Gacel said. “So the overview effect is a cognitive shift that has been recorded with astronauts that have flown into space, looking back on Earth, and noticing the wonder of our planet and of space. And that was something that I wanted to see if I can measure in an analog environment.”
She measured crew isolation and lunar isolation on the human behavior of her crew. Gacel measured how things like food, exercise and job satisfaction affected the analog astronauts. A common theme emerged from her research.
“By the end of it, everybody, and other analog astronauts that I have talked to after the mission, what they've reported was that challenging themselves and thinking, wow, I didn't know that I would be able to do this, but we came out the other side stronger for it.”
