Comment by lukeify
4 hours ago
The NASA/ESA MSR was of substantially higher quality, mind you. The M2020 rover specifically picked up samples of high scientific value to be returned. The Chinese return mission will only return what it finds from its direct landing site.
It would be cool if NASA worked with the Chinese agency to collect those cores using their rocket, it would be a win win.
Unfortunately, they can't:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Amendment
Also they’re no where near each other. These Chinese rover cannot get there.
Also also, if China were to create a new mission to collect them, they would see their costs balloon to unsustainable levels as well, as the issue is how the mission is designed. The samples are all over the place and would need a rover specifically designed to collect them and return them to a launcher.
The US Mars sample return project was always half baked in the hopes that doing something would garner funding for the rest of the mission.
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> China stole design information regarding advanced thermonuclear weapons
Sounds like they blew it. What a shame.
It's not like they're going to do it only once though, and some is a lot more then zero.