[FPSPACE] Future Missions to Mars Will be Joint NASA/ESA Efforts

[E.P. Grondine]

Hi all - 

As I have stated for years, in the future most expensive space missions, 
in particular manned ones, will be done on an international basis. 
(The exception here will be TianGong, which is very inexpensive, and China's 
development of fuel transfer technologies.)

But simple Mars rovers are not among these expensive projects, or shouldn't be. 
Mars rovers should be cheap enough to be done by the private sector, as they 
should cost no more than a major movie, say a couple of hundred million dollars.

More importantly, I wonder how Japan feels about this only two sided agreement? 
Or India? Or China? Or Russia?

I wonder how Secretary of State nominee Clinton feels about this?

I also wonder how President elect Obama feels about Weiler burrowing in 
his own goals in space before he leaves? Perhaps Obama might want to spend 
that 3-4 Billion dollars on something else, perhaps improved Earth sats.

Others may prefer that international agreements be set up for dealing 
with the impact hazard, and that the costs of this be spread.

You know, a billion here, a billion there, and soon you're talking 
about real money.

E.P. Grondine
Man and Impact in the Americas

December 4, 2008
Future Missions to Mars Will be Joint NASA/ESA Efforts
Written by Nancy Atkinson
Future missions to Mars, including a sample return mission will be joint 
endeavors between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). NASA's associate 
administrator for space science Ed Weiler revealed in Thursday's Mars Science 
Laboratory press conference that the two space agencies agreed this week, based 
on initial discussions last July, to work together on future Mars missions. 
"This delay (of MSL) also means an opportunity of in the future having one 
Mars program for all the Earth," said Weiler.
 
"We have now gotten approval that in the future, NASA and ESA are going 
to work together to come up with a European-U.S. Mars architecture," Weiler said. 
"That is, missions won't be NASA missions, they won't be ESA missions, they will 
be joint missions. We need to work together. We'll never, ever do a sample return
mission unless we work together. We both have the same goals scientifically, we 
want to get our science communities together and start laying out a plan. 
We've committed to working together to reaching those goals."
 
A robotic mission to collect soil and rock samples and return them to Earth for 
analysis would likely cost between $6 billion and $8 billion and not be feasible 
until the 2020s.
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