Mars Sample Return - 5/5/24
I'm currently working with a virtual team from around the US to create a proposal for reducing the costs and risks of the NASA/ESA Mars Sample Return mission. I ran some ideas past friends and they ran them past their friends, some of whom are retired from NASA or work with aerospace contractors. I did a 93-page design paper on Mars Sample Return in 2008 and won a competition with it, so I know, or rather knew at the time, the problems and solutions well. I'm trying to revisit that with current technology, much of it off the shelf, to reduce risks and costs for the mission.
At this point, meeting the deadlines with all our government paperwork in order is the greatest challenge. Or as Scotty said on Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home - "Damage control is easy. Reading Klingon? That's hard." I'm putting our odds at ten percent on getting things in by the deadline, and 1 percent of any acknowledgment after that. But ya know, what if we get in? It would be a very interesting summer. Regardless, I will give this as a talk at the next Mars Society Conference in August.
