http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/08/us-plans-mars-should-include-more-sample-return-report-warns
Quote from: Blackstar on 08/07/2018 09:17 pmhttp://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/08/us-plans-mars-should-include-more-sample-return-report-warnsThanks for sharing this (and the other one in the next post)Do you have a view on whether the commentary in these two pieces hits or misses the mark?
I've read the report. The committee looked at a wide range of topics, and the committee provided its judgement on all of them. The committee found that NASA's managers have done a pretty good job of trying to execute to the last Decadal Survey with the resources they had. There are no big red flags. So different reporters focus their short articles on different ones of the 24 recommendations made by the committee.
I think the stuff that the reporters kinda missed is what the committee said about the Europa Lander. There is a subtle, but important point being made there. But read the report yourself and you'll figure it out.
That NASA should stick to the decadal and not study missions because they are popular in Congress?
I'm going to break that sentence down into three parts.
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/casey-dreier/2018/0815-national-academies-report-mars-plans.html
Speaking of sample return, the report also examined NASA's progress toward addressing the top recommendation of the decadal survey: a caching rover to start a sample return campaign from Mars. The Mars 2020 rover is deemed to fully meet those recommendations by including a full suite of in-situ scientific instrumentation and a sample caching and preparation system at ⅔ the cost of the original decadal estimate.
The article says a lot about the concern for MSR planning and the lack of a new telecoms orbiter again, but it also says that the report speaks glowingly of the Mars 2020 rover's progress:
Was at JPL this morning. Took a photo of Mars 2020 coming together. Rover parts not yet in the big clean room.
Quote from: jbenton on 08/22/2018 12:21 amThe article says a lot about the concern for MSR planning and the lack of a new telecoms orbiter again, but it also says that the report speaks glowingly of the Mars 2020 rover's progress:You can always download the report for free and read it yourself. There's a whole chapter on Mars.I'd add that when we did the decadal survey we didn't really expect the second phase of Mars sample return to begin in this decade. We wanted MAX-C (the caching rover) to happen, and it has in the form of Mars 2020. But what we also wanted to happen was for serious technology development on the ascent vehicle to get underway. That did not happen until last year, nearly halfway through the period covered by the decadal survey. Hopefully that technology development investment continues.