Mars Soil Sample Return Mission - Awesome Animation - Now, Let's Do It!

[Shadowsnshades]

Cool video. Too bad we're not going to see this happen. Obama is cutting 20% from NASA's science budget. So no return sample mission to Mars.

[DarqeDestroyer]

Nice video. Shame about the one glaring flaw: There is no longer a space shuttle in service to pick up the returning sample container.

[bordincus]

Utopia

[MrSrgj]

Today Russian Space Agency sends to a satellite of Mars automatic station, which brings ground from a Phobos.

[iceheart920]

Won't the rocket of the landing module cause some sort of 'charcoaling' effect of the soil around the landing site?

[SaveMannedSpace]

@iceheart920 You're right, there could be some contamination; SpaceAnimator's reply below explains current plans with Max-C. A rover can drive around and collect samples not only from sufficient distance to preclude contamination, but to also gather different types of rocks/soils. Hopefully they will make capturing ice samples a priority as they could contain life. The Russian Fobos-Grunt return mission to launch soon to Phobos has just a scoop, which could capture contaminated samples.

[SpaceAnimator]

@SaveMannedSpace

Yes, but they cancelled the MAX-C rover now. So contamination is likely. I is sad :(

[SMACKTALKER100]

@SaveMannedSpace Im sorry to say that Phobos mission is not on its way to that moon after all but burnt up in the atmosphere as it never made it or orbit due to separation problems :(

[bergenstation]

@iceheart920 : this is just a US propaganda.

[iceheart920]

@bergenstation If you aren't interested in science, fuck off.

[bergenstation]

@iceheart920 : I am interested in science not fiction made in US! LOL

and you stupid brain washed war monger american better FUCK OFF!

[iceheart920]

@bergenstation Did you know that NASA is working with ESA on this very idea? But I guess it is easier for you to just bash anything American because that's all your brain understands.

[bergenstation]

@iceheart920 : First: Nasa should prove they have been on moon! second: it is better spend the money for poor and homeless citizen so they would not die in the streets.

or maybe spend the money to send your illiterate GWB to school!

[iceheart920]

@bergenstation Well thanks for outing yourself as a mooner; that saves me the time of arguing with you since you have already conceded all rationality. Btw, the Soviets were tracking the various Apollo missions themselves & yet never once did they come out & accuse NASA of faking the moon mission. One would have thought they would gain the most doing so but perhaps they realized everything that they saw was real. And here you are thinking you are smarter than all of the scientists of the USSR.

[SpaceAnimator]

The current plan at the moment is to send a rover along with ExoMars called Mars Astrobiology Explorer- Cacher (Max-C) to collect samples and store 20 of them. in 2020, a lander would land with a smaller rover and collect the samples from MAX-C and launch them.

[lidul]

i have an idea, please tell me if it would work or not. the original idea was to have it rendezvous with a spacecraft orbiting mars and have that one take it back to earth. what if the lander was small enough to have a micro rocket, attach weather balloons to the sides, inflate them via the actual lander, let it float to its maximum altitude, drop the rocket, then fire the rocket. it would save a lot of fuel, weight, size, ect.

[nccflorin23]

Well, I don't think that the space shuttle will be in service at that time...