Experts Push Back Against Cancellation of NASA's Mars Sample Return Project

Experts push back against cancellation of NASA's Mars sample return project

Exploration advocates are pushing back against the planned cancellation of NASA's Mars sample return project, saying it could potentially find evidence of Red Planet life.

NASA won’t bring back Mars sample

NASA canceled its plan to bring samples of rock from Mars back to Earth.The Perseverance rover has been traversing the surface of the Red Planet since 2021, gathering and analyzing samples, but it is just the first of two stages.A later, as-yet unscheduled mission was intended to return the sealed specimens to Earth.But that is a much more complex operation than the outward journey and was expected to cost $11 billion by its eventual completion …