Comment by lukeify
7 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
Could the Chinese mission just take the US samples without the US's permission?
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.
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Right - because the best engineering is done in a high stakes big bang of upmost complexity rather than iterative improvement?
Not only are political officers making science decisions, but nasa lost its way in the depths of over engineered missions due to requiring a senator to be bribed by the quantity of home stage work.
It's not like they're going to do it only once though, and some is a lot more then zero.