Letters to the editor: Ignore the populist bait of an uneconomical manufacturing dream – The Australian Financial Review

We need better performance from our politicians, and that requires us to ignore the populist bait on offer. And to reward the politicians who act against their own interests to benefit the country.

Graeme Bennett, Artarmon, NSW

Ed Shann would have us continue business as usual and go with our strengths (Forget Made in Australia, do what we already do well). But what of energy security, and the need to decarbonise?

We have recently witnessed Australias dependence on imports, whether in the 90 per cent of our imported oil supplies at risk due to conflicts elsewhere or a pandemic that isolated the very industries Mr Shann believes are our strengths: education and tourism.

As for subsidies, the Australia Institute reported that in 2022-23, Australian governments provided fossil fuel industries with $11.1billion in spending and tax breaks: This years figure represents a 5 per cent decline on last years, but subsidies in the forward estimates have increased from $55.3 billion to a record $57.1 billion.

The focus on returns to fossil fuel shareholders needs to shift to a focus on making renewables work for the environment and for an equitable transition to cheaper energy sources. This will require investment.

On a micro level, millions of Australians have worked this out already. New home battery installations rose 21 per cent last year. According to the Climate Council, rooftop solar is now providing 11.2 per cent of our nations total power supply after 314,507 households installed solar panels last year, bringing online 2.9GW of new generation.

Fiona Colin, Malvern East, Vic

It was pleasing to read rational commentary detailing criteria necessary to boost investment (Four ways we can lift investment in local manufacturing).

It was all about fundamentals: approvals; build times; competitive input costs; skilled workforce. The only mention of tax was the sensible suggestion for faster depreciation of manufacturing investments.

Improved depreciation rates can apply across all industries. Developing and purchasing computer software is part of everyday business and necessary to drive productivity and revenue. It is like employing people to achieve outcomes. All software expenditures should be able to be written off as incurred rather than depreciated.

Graeme Troy, Wagstaffe, NSW

I offer a counter to the self-serving views of the Minerals Council of Australia as presented by chief executive Tania Constable (Dont make stuff Australia has no edge in, says MCA).

Ms Constable seems to have no idea there is much more to a manufacturing sector than raw inputs and outputs. For a start, there is the whole can do mindset that a thriving manufacturing sector can engender. Ms Constable probably cant conceive that there might be thousands of young Australians who would much rather spend their work time actually making things and gaining practical skills than answering emails and moving numbers around on a screen all day.

Can I suggest she read Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment by Francis Fukuyama and pause for a moment to consider the lasting damage to society that can occur when considerations of individual dignity and respect are simply cast aside for the narrow economic benefit of the nation?

Fraser Faithfull, Caulfield South, Vic

The AFR View is right to say the tragedy at Bondi Junction at the weekend would be 10 times worse if the perpetrator had a gun (Bondi Junction tragedy brings out the best). The reason Australians rush to help is that we dont think a gun is involved; the first thing Americans do is run away for fear of being shot.

While it is comforting to see all politicians and media condemn this monstrous act and understand the publics need for full and continuous disclosure, this period will soon end. We will then want to see real change, and real action.

This is where our political leaders could easily let us down. Labor is often criticised for being soft on crime, and time will tell if NSW Premier Chris Minns and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese fall into this category.

As The AFR View rightly points out, drugs are pernicious and a scourge; we need tougher action on drug dealers (especially ice, which seems to be in every suburb, and destroys too many lives), greater focus on reducing male violence towards women, reducing domestic violence, and fast action on mental health. We must support the police use of firearms in these situations, look at technology (artificial intelligence and CCTV), the carrying of mace by women made legal, and stab vests and tasers for security guards (with appropriate training and checks).

It is time for our political leaders to realise that laying flowers and sharing updates is important to help unite people and to grieve, but its 1 per cent of the job; taking effective action is the other 99 per cent.

Glen Frost, Darlington, NSW

The news that KIA is marketing a super-sized diesel vehicle specifically for the Australian market says a lot about our mind set. The world is in a climate emergency yet we are partying like there is no tomorrow.

When I drive to the local shopping centre, my little Corolla is dwarfed by a sea of Rams, Rangers and Range Rovers. They are excessive for doing the weekly shopping and school run.

What does it take to shake Australians from their complacency? We are all in this together, folks.

Barry Lizmore, Ocean Grove, Vic

I had no idea CPI was running at 20 per cent until I bought a copy of AFR Weekend in Adelaide on Saturday with a new cover price of $6, up from $5. No doubt Rear Window will shortly do a forensic analysis. After all, the Fins preoccupation with transparency is legendary.

John Bridgland, Adelaide, SA

We are always interested to hear your views on current topics.

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Letters to the editor: Ignore the populist bait of an uneconomical manufacturing dream - The Australian Financial Review

Food trucks and concerts: Prinsjesdag to get populist overhaul – DutchNews.nl

Prinsjesdag, the tradition-laden state opening of the parliamentary year is to get a facelift after declining crowds and an increase in protests directed at the royals, forces officials to rethink their approach.

Every year the king and queen drive through The Hague in a horse-drawn carriage, on their way to perform the opening ceremony. And on their return to their Noordeinde palace, they stand on the balcony for a few minutes and wave at the crowds.

But fewer people have been showing up to watch the procession and the royals have had to face jeers and demonstrations, particularly during the coronavirus era.

Now, officials from the royal household, the upper and lower chambers of parliament, and the government are putting together a new plan to boost the publics involvement in Prinsjesdag, documents which have been leaked to broadcaster NOS show.

Some of the traditional elements, such as the procession of four coaches, the kings reading of a speech outlining government policy, and the balcony scene will be retained. But new elements will be added in, including some sort of walk-about by the royals to meet the public, NOS said.

One suggestion is a public concert on the square next to the parliamentary complex which should be similar in atmosphere to the events hosted by popular classical music conductor Andr Rieu in Maastricht.

Other ideas include encouraging everyone to wear a hat, a performance by an artist who is popular with the young, open days at the various palaces and other royal buildings in The Hague, and a food truck festival.

The first changes should be visible on September 17 when the next Prinsjesdag takes place, but it is unclear as yet what they are likely to be.

The governments spending plans for the following year are always presented on the third Tuesday in September.

According to research published last November, 50% of the general population support the monarchy but 26% would like the Netherlands to become a republic.

Among the under 35s, almost four in 10 support the monarchy but 34% consider themselves republicans. Eleven years ago, when Willem-Alexander was sworn in as king, 80% of the population backed the monarchy.

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Food trucks and concerts: Prinsjesdag to get populist overhaul - DutchNews.nl

Argentina’s populist president meets billionaire Elon Musk in Texas and a bromance is born – PinalCentral

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Argentina's populist president meets billionaire Elon Musk in Texas and a bromance is born - PinalCentral

Argentina’s populist president meets billionaire Elon Musk in Texas and a bromance is born – Idaho Press

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Argentina's populist president meets billionaire Elon Musk in Texas and a bromance is born - Idaho Press

NASA to look for new options to carry out Mars Sample Return program – SpaceNews

WASHINGTON NASA will seek out of the box ideas in a bid to reduce the costs and shorten the schedule for returning samples from Mars.

In an April 15 briefing, agency officials announced they would solicit proposals from NASA centers and from industry on innovative designs to reshape its Mars Sample Return (MSR) effort after an internal review confirmed the ballooning costs of the overall program.

That review found that the current program would cost between $8 billion and $11 billion, the same range offered by an independent assessment completed last September. To fit that into the overall planetary science budget without affecting other programs would delay the return of samples from the early 2030s to 2040.

The bottom line is that $11 billion is too expensive and not returning samples until 2040 is unacceptably too long, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said at the briefing.

To try to reduce costs and schedule, NASA will issue a request for proposals April 16 seeking ideas on alternative approaches for the overall MSR architecture or specific elements of it, like the sample retrieval lander or Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) rocket that would place the collected samples into orbit. Proposals would be due to NASA May 17, with the agency issuing contracts for 90-day studies shortly thereafter.

Im expecting to get everybody in high gear and that we have the answers to this by this fall, Nelson said.

While NASA is looking for innovative approaches, it is not necessarily looking for new technologies. What were looking for is heritage, said Nicola Fox, NASA associate administrator for science. What were hoping is that well be able to get back to some more traditional, tried-and-true architectures, things that do not require huge technological leaps.

One example she gave is technology that enables a smaller, and presumably less expensive, MAV. The studies, she said, will seek proposals that could return an unspecified number of samples, and not necessarily all the roughly 30 samples that the Perseverance rover will have on board when it completes its work.

NASAs hope is that the studies can significantly reduce the cost and schedule for MSR, but officials did not set a specific goal. Were definitely going to try, Nelson said, adding he was counting on the expertise of NASA personnel and those in industry to find a solution.

The goal is to do better than a revised version of the baseline architecture for MSR that NASA developed in response to the independent report last fall. That architecture would see the launch of the ESA-developed Earth Return Orbiter in 2030, slightly later than currently planned, said Sandra Connelly, NASA deputy associate administrator for science, during a town hall meeting after the briefing. That would be followed by the sample retrieval lander with the MAV in 2035, allowing samples to make it back to Earth in 2040.

One issue is the longevity of Perseverance. Connelly said the new plan would have Perseverance complete its exploration of terrain outside Jezero Crater and return to the crater floor in 2028. Once there, it would go into a quiescent state until the sample retrieval lander arrived.

Fox suggested in the town hall meeting that this baseline concept would not fly given its projected high cost. In the current budget climate that we have, $11 billion, as the administrator said, is too much, she said. I wouldnt say the entire thing is dead on arrival. What were looking at is how we can infuse some innovation and heritage and simplification.

MSR, though, will be on a fiscal diet the next two years. Fox said that NASA plans to spend $310 million on MSR in the current fiscal year, near the low end of the range offered by congressional appropriators in the final omnibus spending bill last month. That is a little less than one third of the $949.3 million that NASA originally requested for MSR in its 2024 budget proposal.

NASAs fiscal year 2025 budget request left funding for MSR as TBD or to be determined. NASA now says it will seek $200 million for the program. Lori Glaze, director of NASAs planetary science division, said at the town hall meeting that the $200 million will come from a line for Planetary Decadal Future in the original budget proposal, avoiding taking money away from existing missions or research programs. It would, though, further delay new missions, like a proposed Uranus mission recommended by the latest planetary science decadal survey.

Nelson said he has had extensive discussions about NASAs MSR plans with members of Congress, including senators and representatives from California worried about the effects of the changes on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which laid off 8% of its workforce in February in response to reductions in spending on MSR. They seem to be quite understanding of the predicament were in.

However, in a statement a few hours after the briefing, Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.) criticized the budget reductions. These funding levels are woefully short for a mission that NASA itself identified as its highest priority in planetary science and that has been decades in the making, they stated, asking Nelson to work with Congress to better balance these cuts to protect the JPL workforce.

NASA officials said at the briefing and town hall that there was no discussion of suspending or even canceling MSR, citing its high ranking in the last two planetary science decadal survey among flagship-class missions. Returning these samples from Mars is such a huge priority for us. That is why were doing all of these things, Fox said.

Returning the samples from Mars remains an important operation, Nelson said.

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NASA to look for new options to carry out Mars Sample Return program - SpaceNews

NASA’s Mars sample return plan is getting a major overhaul: ‘The bottom line is $11 billion is too expensive’ – Space.com

NASA is looking for a new way to get its precious Mars samples back to Earth.

Those samples are being collected by the Perseverance rover in Mars' Jezero Crater, which hosted a lake and a river delta billions of years ago. Getting ahold of the samplesis one of NASA's top science goals; studying pristine Red Planet material in well-equipped labs around the world could reveal key insights about Mars including, perhaps, whether it has ever hosted life, NASA officials say.

The agency has had a Mars sample-return (MSR) architecture in place for some time now, but repeated delays and cost overruns have rendered the original plan impractical, NASA officials announced today (April 15).

"The bottom line is that $11 billion is too expensive, and not returning samples until 2040 is unacceptably too long," NASA chief Bill Nelson said during a call with reporters this afternoon.

Related:NASA's Mars Sample Return in jeopardy after US Senate questions budget

That price tag is the upper-end estimate calculated by an independent review board, which released its findings last September. For perspective: A study from July 2020 estimated the total cost of MSR to be between $2.5 and $3 billion.

A team from within NASA analyzed those September results, determining that the agency won't be able to get Perseverance's samples back to Earth until 2040 with the established architecture. This conclusion cited reasons such as current budget constraints and the desire not to cannibalize other high-priority science efforts, like the Dragonfly drone mission to Saturn's huge moon Titan.

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!

The established architecture, by the way, would have sent a NASA-built lander to Jezero Crater. This lander would have brought with it a rocket called the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) and, potentially, several small retrieval helicopters akin to NASA's pioneering Ingenuity rotorcraft.

The idea was for Perseverance to drive its samples over to the lander, then load them into the MAV. The retrieval choppers may have done some of this loading work as well, especially if Perseverance wasn't in great shape by the time the lander arrived. The MAV would then have launched the samples into Mars orbit, where a spacecraft built by the European Space Agency would have snagged the container and hauled it back toward Earth.

NASA is now seeking a new way forward, however, in an attempt to cut costs and get the samples here sooner. Saving money will aid other agency science projects, and speeding up the timeline could help the agency plan out crewed Mars trips down the line.

"That is unacceptable, [to] wait that long," Nelson said today. "It's the decade of the 2040s that we're going to be landing astronauts on Mars."

The wheels on the new plan (which may retain elements of the old) are already turning. NASA is asking the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California its lead facility for robotic planetary exploration and other agency research centers for innovative MSR ideas, Nelson said today.

NASA is also looking to private industry: The agency plans to release a solicitation for new ideas from the commercial sector tomorrow (April 16), Nicky Fox, associate administrator of the agency's Science Mission Directorate, said during today's call.

NASA will hold an industry day on April 22 and accept proposals through May 17, she added. The goal is to have enough information on hand by late fall or early winter to begin charting a new path forward on MSR. "We're opening this up to everyone, because we want to get every new and fresh idea that we can," Nelson said.

It's unclear at this point, of course, what that new path will look like. But Fox previewed some possibilities, such as a smaller and cheaper MAV and a descoped sample-return tally (from 30 of Perseverance's sealed tubes to some unspecified lower number). Fox and Nelson both stressed that MSR remains a high priority for NASA, despite the difficulty of the task humanity has never launched a rocket from the surface of another planet, after all (though three countries have launched from the moon) in addition to the problems the project has experienced so far.

"I think it's fair to say that we are committed to retrieving the samples that are there at least some of those samples," Nelson said. "We are operating from the premise that this is an important national objective."

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NASA's Mars sample return plan is getting a major overhaul: 'The bottom line is $11 billion is too expensive' - Space.com

NASA announces major overhaul of ambitious Mars Sample Return mission – The Washington Post

NASA announced Monday it is dramatically overhauling its highly anticipated but troubled mission to bring pieces of Mars to Earth, a move that experts say puts the project on life support. The space agency said it continues to support Mars Sample Return, but will operate the program under bare-bones budgets in the near-term while it seeks proposals for a faster and cheaper mission architecture.

The mission is an ambitious attempt to secure pristine chunks of the Red Planet that might help scientists reveal whether it ever hosted life. But the future of the project has been uncertain since last fall, when an independent review board produced a dire report saying the mission needed a management overhaul amid probable cost overruns and delays.

A 2020 report from the board had estimated sample return would cost $3.8 billion to $4.4 billion. Now the estimated cost over the lifetime of the mission is between $8.4 billion and $10.9 billion, with samples arriving on Earth in 2040.

That would put Mars Sample Returns price tag similar to that of the James Webb Space Telescope, a scientific and engineering marvel now observing the universe from a solar orbit about a million miles from Earth. The Webb took decades to get off the ground and gobbled up more of NASAs science dollars than anyone had hoped.

The estimated 2040 return date is unacceptable, NASA administrator Bill Nelson said Monday in a news briefing.

Its the decade of the 2040s that were going to be landing astronauts on Mars. Its also unacceptable that its $11 billion, Nelson said.

The costliness of Mars Sample Return comes at a time when NASAs science budget isnt sufficient to fund all the telescopes and space probes already underway or being planned. With congressional support for the mission unclear, NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory earlier this year laid off about 8 percent of its workforce.

Still, Mars Sample Return has been the top priority of the planetary science communitys decadal survey process, which elevates the most promising missions from the blizzard of proposals. But retrieving pristine scraps of Mars for laboratory analysis on Earth requires unprecedented technological feats. NASA and its partners, including the European Space Agency, cant simply send a spacecraft to the surface of Mars and expect it to blast off again and return to Earth. Instead, the mission calls for a fleet of spaceships operating as a team.

The Perseverance rover, which landed on Mars in 2021, has been collecting and storing samples of Martian rock and soil in Jezero Crater, where scientists believe a river flowed into a lake several billion years ago. The rover has separate funding from the sample return project.

I think its fair to say we are committed to retrieving the samples that are there, Nelson said.

The original plan called for NASA to send another vehicle to land on Mars and collect the samples from Perseverance. That lander will carry an ascent vehicle that will blast off Mars and carry the samples to orbit. There the material will be transferred to yet another spacecraft, a Mars orbiter built by the European Space Agency and charged with the task of hauling the samples back to Earth.

At the briefing, NASA officials called on the scientific community and industry to propose new ideas that use more existing, proven technologies and possibly a simpler process to retrieve the samples.

We are looking at out-of-the-box possibilities that could return the samples earlier and at a lower cost, NASAs head of science Nicola Nicky Fox said during the briefing.

G. Scott Hubbard, a Stanford professor who formerly led NASAs Mars program, said in an email he was pleased by the robust drumbeat of support for the mission expressed by Fox and other officials in a NASA town hall Monday. But he questioned whether a new architecture could bring down costs and speed up the mission.

[A] magic-wand solution that dramatically reduces cost or schedule without substantially increasing risk is hard to imagine, Hubbard said. I would be happy to be proven wrong.

Bethany Ehlmann, a planetary scientist at Caltech and president of the Planetary Society, said NASA needs to find the willpower to finish a job already started by Perseverance.

I am confident that we have the technological pieces to put sample return together. But when we choose to do things that are hard, we need to decide to do them and overcome the challenges together, Ehlmann said. What we need is the leadership and the commitment to do it.

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NASA announces major overhaul of ambitious Mars Sample Return mission - The Washington Post

NASA’s About to Make a Big Announcement About Mars. Here’s What We Know. – ScienceAlert

We're about to find out what's happening with NASA's beleaguered Mars Sample Return mission. In just a few hours at 1PM EDT NASA is going to host a media teleconference that sets out its recommendations for moving forward.

The mission has been ongoing for several years, with the deployment of the Perseverance rover in February 2021. Part of Perseverance's mission is to gather interesting samples of Martian rock to be collected by another mission and returned to Earth.

Last year, the future of the Mars sample return mission became shaky after an independent review determined that the program had "unrealistic budget and schedule expectations", an "unwieldy structure" and was "not arranged to be led effectively".

The House and Senate appropriations committees subsequently recommended a budget that included a cut of $454,080,000 to NASA's 2024 budget, specifically from the Mars Sample Return mission. NASA has also reduced spending on the mission, and laid off a large number of workers and contractors from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is leading the mission.

This has led to some alarm that the mission may be axed, and the canisters filled by Perseverance left useless on the surface of Mars. NASA's upcoming announcement offers a glimmer of hope yet maybe.

"Mars Sample Return has been a major long-term goal of international planetary exploration for the past two decades," the agency writes.

"NASA's Perseverance rover is collecting compelling science samples that will help scientists understand the geological history of Mars, the evolution of its climate, and prepare for future human explorers. The return of the samples will also help NASA's search for signs of ancient life."

The current plan has an orbiter launching in 2027, a lander launching in 2028, and pristine Mars samples coming to Earth in 2033. Fingers crossed the new recommendations offer a way to meet those timelines.

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NASA's About to Make a Big Announcement About Mars. Here's What We Know. - ScienceAlert

This Documentary Explores The Loneliness Of A Mars Mission – Science Friday

Listen to Universe of Art onApple Podcasts,Spotify,Google Podcasts,Stitcher,TuneInor your favorite podcasting app.

NASA is preparing to send humans to Mars. Although the launch date has been pushed back over the years, the agency says it wants to get there in the 2030s. And it has a lot on its to-do list. NASA needs to build new rockets, new habitable living spaces, new spacesuits, and new radiation shielding, just to name a few items.

But what if the one of the biggest challenges of these missions is not the engineering, but the mental health of the astronauts? Can all of the crew members get along with each other and stay alive over the course of three years in tight quarters and unforgiving environments? How will they cope with being separated from their families and friends for so long? And what lessons can they learn from astronauts whove lived on the International Space Stationand from our collective experience of isolation during the pandemic?

A new documentary, out March 8, explores all these questions and more. Its called The Longest Goodbye, and it dives intoNASAs Human Factors program, which includes a group of psychologists who are trying to figure out the best way to preserve astronauts mental health on a long and demanding mission.

Host D. Peterschmidt spoke to the films director, Ido Mizrahy, and one of its featured astronauts, Dr. Cady Coleman, about how NASA is thinking about tackling loneliness in space and what we can learn from astronauts whove already lived on the space station.

Plus, a listener shares his experience about performing a drumroll for the solar eclipse.

Universe of Art is hosted and produced by D. Peterschmidt, who also wrote the music. Our show art was illustrated by Abelle Hayford. Support for Science Fridays science and arts coverage comes from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Do you have science-inspired art youd like to share with us for a future episode? Send us an email or a voice memo touniverse@sciencefriday.com.

D. Peterschmidt

D. Peterschmidt is a producer, host of the podcast Universe of Art, and composes music for Science Fridays podcasts. Their D&D character is a clumsy bard named Chip Chap Chopman.

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This Documentary Explores The Loneliness Of A Mars Mission - Science Friday

Supporting the future of Mars exploration with supercomputers – EurekAlert

You may have flown a flight simulator in a computer game or at a science museum. Landing without crashing is always the hardest part. But thats nothing compared to the challenge that engineers are facing to develop a flight simulation of the very large vehicles necessary for humans to explore the surface of Mars. The Red Planet poses innumerable challenges to astronauts, not the least of which is getting there. Thats where the Department of Energy Office of Sciences user facility supercomputers come in. Researchers at DOEs Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) are working with NASA engineers and scientists tosimulate the process of slowing down a huge spacecraft as it moves towards Mars surface.

Landing spacecraft on Mars isnt new to NASA. The agency ran its first missions to the planet in 1976 with the Viking project. Since then, NASA has successfully carried out eight additional Mars landings.

What makes this goal different is the fact that its much more difficult to land the huge spacecraft required for human exploration than those for robotic missions. The robotic vehicles use parachutes to decelerate through Mars atmosphere. But a spacecraft carrying humans will be about 20 to 50 times heavier. A vehicle this large simply cant use parachutes. Instead, NASA will need to rely on retro-propulsion. This technology uses rockets that fire forwards to slow down the vehicle as it approaches the surface.

A number of challenges come with using retropropulsion. The high-energy rocket engine exhaust interacts with both the vehicle and the Martian atmosphere. Those dynamics change how the team needs to guide and control the vehicle. In addition, engineers cant fully replicate how a flight on Mars would go on Earth. While they can test spacecraft in wind tunnels and use other tools, those tools arent a perfect replacement or direct analog for the Martian environment.

To fill in the gaps, NASA turned to the OLCF supercomputers and their expert computer scientists. In theory, programs running on supercomputers could fully simulate the Martian environment and many of the complex physics associated with using retropropulsion.

The project team has relied on FUN3D, a long-standing suite of software tools that models how fluids including air move. Engineers created the first version of the code in the late 1980s and have continually made major improvements since then. Agencies and companies in aeronautics and space technology have used it to tackle major challenges.

The current Mars effort began in 2019 on Summit, OLCFs fastest computer at the time. The initial simulations assumed fixed conditions. They simulated just one point along the vehicles trajectory. Those early versions allowed scientists to evaluate the impacts of flight speeds, engine settings, and more. Further developments enabled engineers to explore real gas effects. They could account for the liquid oxygen-methane rocket engines and the carbon dioxide-heavy Martian atmosphere. Even these early simulations typically resulted in petabyte-sized datasets. It would take about 1,000 powerful home computers to store a single petabyte. But even these werent full simulations that wasnt possible yet.

The next step was to incorporate a whole new piece of software into the simulation the Program to Optimize Simulated Trajectories (POST2). NASA developed POST2 to analyze flight mechanics for a broad range of applications. While initial simulations relied on static conditions, POST2 allowed scientists to dynamically fly the vehicle in the simulation. The team engaged researchers from Georgia Techs Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory. They had previously developed unique strategies to couple POST2 with high-fidelity aerodynamic simulations. Incorporating POST2 also required engineers to change the project workflow. The softwares use was restricted to NASA computing systems for security reasons. As such, the team needed to ensure the NASA systems could communicate smoothly with Summit at OLCF. Resolving issues with firewalls, network interruptions, and other programs required a full year of planning for the cybersecurity and system administration teams at both facilities!

The latest advance involved moving the entire simulation over to the newest and most powerful computer at OLCF Frontier. The firstexascale computerin the world, Frontier is massively more powerful than previous supercomputers. With a series of coordinated runs over a two-week period, the team ran its most elaborate flight simulation to date. It was a 35-second closed-loop descent from 5 miles altitude to approximately 0.6 miles. The simulation slowed the vehicle from 1,200 miles per hour to approximately 450 miles per hour. POST2 was able to autonomously control the vehicle in a stable fashion using its eight main engines and four reaction control system modules.

With the immense power provided by Frontier at OLCF, NASA engineers are moving forward to tackle new frontiers in space travel.

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

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Supporting the future of Mars exploration with supercomputers - EurekAlert

NASA needs a cheaper, faster way to bring Mars dirt back to Earth – The Verge

Budget constraints have NASA looking for a faster and cheaper method to bring samples from Mars surface back to Earth. In a teleconference on Monday, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said that an independent review concluded that the agencys current plan to bring the first samples collected by the Mars rover Perseverance could cost up to $11 billion and would likely not be achievable until 2040. The fiscal 2025 budget for the space agency, as well as additional anticipated budget cuts, are behind how slowly the current plan is being executed.

That is unacceptable to wait that long, Nelson said about the mission to return samples of dust and rocks from Mars to Earth. Its the decade of the 2040s that were going to be landing astronauts on Mars.

NASA is planning to solicit ideas from its various centers and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for a quicker, cheaper return mission. Nelson said the agency is aiming for a budget of under $7 billion and is hoping to bring the samples back in the 2030s.

The independent review, conducted last September, raised numerous concerns over the feasibility of NASAs Mars Sample Return Mission. NASA had originally estimated that the return missions launch would take place in 2027 or 2028, but the independent review concluded that this would be impossible due to technical issues, risks, and performance-to-date.

In an X post on Monday, SpaceX founder Elon Musk wrote that the company will be responding to NASAs solicitation for alternatives and that the companys Starship rocket has the potential to return serious tonnage in less than five years.

Starship has run into its own delays and challenges. The most recent launch of a prototype in March was successful, but SpaceX lost contact with the rocket just as it reentered the Earths atmosphere.

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NASA needs a cheaper, faster way to bring Mars dirt back to Earth - The Verge

NASA Is Asking for Help to Return Samples That Could Uncover Life on Mars – FLYING

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has shared the space agencys revised path forward for the Mars Sample Return program, a proposed NASA-European Space Agency (ESA) mission to return Martian rock and soil samples to Earth. NASAs Perseverance rover has been collecting rock and soil samples on the Red Planet since 2021.

The agency is asking the NASA community, including its Jet Propulsion Laboratory and other agency centers, to collaborate on out-of-the-box designs, using existing technology, that could return the samples.

NASA on Monday released its response to a September 2023 Independent Review Board (IRB) report analyzing Mars Sample Return and its costs. It estimated the missions budget at $8 billion to $11 billion, with the high end of that range being more than double previous estimates of $4.4 billion.

Under those constraints, Nelson said, the mission would not return samples until 2040, which he said is unacceptable.

Mars Sample Return will be one of the most complex missions NASA has ever undertaken, said Nelson. The bottom line is, an $11 billion budget is too expensive, and a 2040 return date is too far away. Safely landing and collecting the samples, launching a rocket with the samples off another planetwhich has never been done beforeand safely transporting the samples more than 33 million miles back to Earth is no small task. We need to look outside the box to find a way ahead that is both affordable and returns samples in a reasonable timeframe.

Nelson also pointed to Congress recent budget cuts as a contributing factor in the agencys current challenges.

The agencys response to the IRB report includes an updated mission design with reduced complexity; improved resiliency; risk posture; [and] stronger accountability and coordination.

It said it will solicit proposals from the industry that could return samples in the 2030s, with responses expected in the fall. These alternative mission designs, NASA said, would reduce cost, risk, and mission complexity. It is unclear exactly what kind of solution the agency is seeking. But it emphasized leveraging existing technologies that do not require large amounts of time and money to develop.

Without more funding, according to NASA, Mars Sample Return could dip into money allocated for projects at the Goddard Space Flight Center, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and other centers. Projects such as Dragonfly, a mission to Saturns largest moon, Titan, could be discontinued, warned Nicola Fox, associate administrator of NASAs Science Mission Directorate.

Plans for a Mars sample return mission have been proposed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory since 2001. The samples are expected to help researchers understand the formation and evolution of the solar system and habitable worlds, including our own. They could be used to learn whether there was ancient life on Mars and aid in the search for life elsewhere in the universe.

NASAs Perseverance rover landed on Mars in 2021 and has been collecting samples since. Originally, the plan was to return them to Earth in 2033 using a rocket, orbiter, and lander. However, the IRB report found that the orbiter and lander likely would not leave the Earth until that year.

A Sample Retrieval Lander would deploy a small rocket to collect samples from Perseverance, using an ESA-provided robotic arm. Sample recovery helicoptersbased on the successful Ingenuity autonomous Mars helicopter and also capable of collecting sampleswould serve as backup.

A Mars Ascent Vehicle, which would be the first rocket to launch off the Mars surface, would carry samples to the planets orbit, where they would be captured by an Earth Return Orbitealso designed by ESAand brought back to Earth.

The initiative would be the first international, interplanetary mission to return samples from another planet and, according to NASA, would return the most carefully selected and well-documented set of samples ever delivered from another planet.

Earlier this year, the space agency marked the 20-year anniversary of its twin Spirit and Opportunity rovers arrival on the Martian surface, where they provided the first compelling evidence that the red planet once held water.

NASAs Curiosity rover is currently surveying a region of the planet thought to have been carved by a river billions of years ago. Its explorations could lead to further discoveries about life on Mars.

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NASA Is Asking for Help to Return Samples That Could Uncover Life on Mars - FLYING

SpaceX’s giant Starship will be 500 feet tall for Mars missions, Elon Musk says (video) – Space.com

SpaceX's Starship, the largest rocket in the world, will get even bigger as the company continues to target Mars missions in the future.

Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of SpaceX, told employees on April 4 that Starship will eventually be as tall as 500 feet (150 meters), roughly 20% higher than the massive system aboard the Super Heavy rocket right now.

What's more, advances in reusability will have each launch cost roughly $3 million each, Musk predicted; that's less than a third of what a (much smaller) Falcon 1 rocket launch cost in 2004 when inflation is taken into account. (The figure two decades ago was $5.9 million, according to NBC, which is roughly $9.5 million in 2024 dollars.)

"These are sort of unthinkable numbers," Musk said in the Starship update, released publicly April 6, roughly one month after the third and last test flight to date. "Nobody ever thought that this was possible, but we're not breaking any physics to achieve this. So this is within the bounds, without breaking physics. We can do this."

Related: SpaceX fires up huge Super Heavy booster ahead of 4th Starship test flight (photos, video)

Musk tends to deliver Starship updates at least once a year to highlight progress the company is making toward its long-term plans of settling Mars. Indeed, the last year has seen three Starship launches, so there has been progress made recently. Musk didn't, however, address delays in launching Starship that have contributed to pushing back the launch date for the first moon landing under the NASA-led Artemis program.

SpaceX was named the vendor for the Artemis 3 landing mission that, until recently, was set for 2025. In January, NASA elected to hold the launch date another year, to 2026, due to a range of technical issues. Aside from Starship not being ready the agency wants many successful launches before approving it for astronaut flights Artemis 3 was also delayed due to slow progress on spacesuits and problems with the mission's Orion spacecraft, among other factors.

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!

However, Musk's words about Artemis, to employees, focused on Starship's future capabilities: orbiting the Earth and refilling its tanks, both of which have yet to be proven on its three test flights.

"This will ... be very important for the Artemis program for the NASA to get back to the moon," Musk said of those capabilities. He also envisions a "Moon Base Alpha" that would include ships "specialized for going to and from the moon", meaning there would be no heat shield or flaps due to the lack of atmosphere.

Related: NASA celebrates SpaceX Starship's 3rd test flight, but more work needed ahead of Artemis moon missions

Musk's 45-minute speech touched on the usual themes for his Red Planet updates, focusing on how to send a lot of cargo out there for eventual settlers. He noted that would take thousands of launches to do; for perspective, Musk said the company has completed 327 successful Falcon series launches and about 80 percent of those had reused boosters (a key factor in reducing cost.)

SpaceX is by far the most active launching entity on Earth, and Musk forecasts the company will send roughly 90 percent of orbital mass aloft this year compared to China's 6 percent (the second-largest entity.)

Starship's next and fourth spaceflight attempt, expected to take place in May, aims to have the first stage of Super Heavy land "on essentially a virtual tower" in the Gulf of Mexico, Musk said. Once the company safely gets that done, they will consider using the launching area at Starbase, in south Texas, for future landings as soon as Flight 5. (Musk pegged the chances of success on Flight 4 at 80% or 90%.)

Musk also wants to perform two splashdowns of the upper stage of Starship in a row, in a controlled fashion, before sending it to Starbase on a future flight. "We do not want to rain debris over Mexico or the U.S.," he said. "My guess is probably next year when we will be able to reuse Starship."

Overall, Musk plans for multiple Starship launches to take place this year, and suggests SpaceX will build an additional six spacecraft by the end of 2024. A new rocket factory for the company should be available in 2025, which would make production even faster.

Future versions of Starship will include a "Starship 2" to send 100 tons of payload to low-Earth orbit and the 500-foot "Starship 3" for 200 or more tons. Bigger vehicles, Musk stressed, will mean fewer (four or five) refueling missions in low Earth orbit to get a Starship ready for the journey to Mars someday.

Of these milestones, Musk said it would be "very much a success-oriented schedule." His speech did not mention the Federal Aviation Administration, which must approve each one of the launches, nor ongoing criticism of the environmental impact of Starship on the ecologically sensitive area near Starbase.

That impact may continue to grow, as Musk said it would take roughly 10 launches a day to send hundreds of vehicles to Mars every two years (when the planet is closest) to make a long-term settlement feasible. As for the number of Mars-bound people, that would be roughly a million folks, he said that matches predictions he made at least as far back as 2017. Musk also says he wants to get the settlement going "in 20 years." He said the same thing in 2011.

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SpaceX's giant Starship will be 500 feet tall for Mars missions, Elon Musk says (video) - Space.com

NASA is seeking a faster, cheaper way to bring Mars samples to Earth – News-Press Now

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NASA is seeking a faster, cheaper way to bring Mars samples to Earth - News-Press Now

NASA rethinks plan to return rare Mars samples to Earth – The Albany Herald

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NASA rethinks plan to return rare Mars samples to Earth - The Albany Herald

Baseball Recap: Mars extends home winning streak to five – MaxPreps

Mars won against North Hills last Wednesday with nine runs and they decided to stick to that run total again on Monday. The Mars Fightin' Planets walked away with a 9-4 win over the New Castle Hurricanes. The victory made it back-to-back wins for Mars.

For New Castle's part, Malik Jefferson made the most of his time at bat despite the final result and scored a run while going 2-for-2.

Mars' victory was their fifth straight at home, which pushed their record up to 6-3. Those victories were due in large part to their hitting performance across that stretch, as they averaged 6.6 runs per game. As for New Castle, they haven't won a game yet this season and fell to 0-9.

Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps

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Baseball Recap: Mars extends home winning streak to five - MaxPreps

NASA is seeking a faster, cheaper way to bring Mars samples to Earth – The Caledonian-Record

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NASA is seeking a faster, cheaper way to bring Mars samples to Earth - The Caledonian-Record

JPL chief Laurie Leshin on science, Mars and budget infighting – SpaceNews

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is home base for building pioneering spacecraft that have probed every planet in our solar system, including the Sun.

Federally funded by NASA and managed by Caltech, JPL and its cadre of engineers and scientists are led by Laurie Leshin, the first woman to serve as JPL director, who took on the role in May 2022 following a career as a geochemist in academia and NASA.

Leshin points to space technology achievements, but has also been plagued by program setbacks and space budget woes, especially regarding the JPL-led Mars Sample Return project.

Leshin spoke with SpaceNews about JPLs path forward and steps to retain and bolster the revered laboratorys capabilities.

How do you characterize your concerns about NASAs overall budget and its impact on JPL?

There is good news for sure, such as the VERITAS Venus orbiter coming back and that were now re-planning and ramping back up. Most of the [NASA] science budget is fairly flat which, while not great, is not terrible. Planetary science, however, finds itself in a very, very difficult position. It is a fairly unprecedented threat to the nations deep space capability which is resident at JPL, so I have major concerns.

How impactful were Februarys budget-related layoffs on the labs future?

We hire only great people. So we will miss all those who were laid off. Were supporting them in every way we can think of through their transition. While it cut to depth, it did not eliminate any core capability. We worked very hard in spite of having to make the deep cuts and to make sure those capabilities were intact.

What is an example of a core capability at JPL?

Our nations Mars exploration capability is resident at the lab. No other organization has landed on Mars in the United States except us with partners always, but we have led every one of those missions. But if the budget challenges continue or decisions continue to be deferred, those capabilities will be at risk. I dont know how to say it other than that.

Our job as a nation is to have some hard conversations about what being spacefaring for the future really means. How do we make sure that theres Mars in our moon-to-Mars program? Theres no moon-to-Mars without Mars and theres no Mars without JPL.

Any other NASA budget concerns?

A science versus human spaceflight moment is not good for our community. We all need to pull together to support the diverse portfolio that NASA has. In tight budget times, we tend to fight with each other and that is always a bad idea.

JPL leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission. All on track for liftoff this October?

Europa Clipper just came out of JPLs thermal vacuum chamber. You shake it. You bake it. You look for magnetic cleanliness. End-to-end missions tests to simulate launch, solar array deployment, deep space cruise, orbit insertion at Jupiter, flybys of Europa. Weve done all of that. Were in really good shape. Were on track to ship it to Florida in the May timeframe and get it ready to fly on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy.

Theres another look looming at the costly and complex Mars Sample Return program. Whats coming?

I cant talk about it at this time. That review is coming relatively soon to be released in the spring. NASA has funding challenges. Its a really important set of decisions they are making. Mars Sample Return was the next big thing at JPL. So we need to make sure that gets back on track as quickly as possible.

So you see a way forward for Mars Sample Return?

Its a difficult moment. Theres a way to move forward with this mission that will cost less on an annual basis than the prior plan and its very much in line with what weve spent on other large missions. NASA has a chance to go down that path. I hope they will and then Ill breathe.

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JPL chief Laurie Leshin on science, Mars and budget infighting - SpaceNews

NASA seeks faster, cheaper way to bring Mars rocks to Earth – The Elkhart Truth

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NASA seeks faster, cheaper way to bring Mars rocks to Earth - The Elkhart Truth

Could these big expandable habitats help humanity settle the moon and Mars? – Space.com

COLORADO SPRINGS Max Space wants to help humanity expand into the final frontier.

The startup is developing a range of inflatable space habitats, the largest of which could provide as much internal volume as a sports stadium. These plans, which Max Space unveiled on Tuesday (April 9) here at the 39th Space Symposium, are designed to help our species make the difficult leap off its home planet.

"The problem with space today is, there isn't enough habitable space in space," Max Space co-founder Aaron Kemmer said in a statement on Tuesday. "Unless we make usable space in space a lot less expensive, and much much larger, humanity's future in space will remain limited."

Related: Living on the moon: What it would be like (infographic)

Back in 2010, Kemmer co-founded the off-Earth manufacturing company Made In Space, which has sent multiple 3D-printing devices to the International Space Station (ISS) over the years. (Made In Space was acquired by Redwire in 2020.)

He says that experience helped convince him that expandable habitats are the future, citing one of the machines Made In Space modified for use on the ISS.

"It's like a three-story system on Earth, and all the engineering wasn't to make it work in space it was actually to get it down to a locker [size], just because there wasn't enough real estate in there," Kemmer told Space.com in an interview here at the symposium on Tuesday.

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!

Expandable habitats, as the name suggests, launch in compressed form to fit inside rocket fairings but increase in size greatly when deployed in space. They therefore offer much more bang for the buck volume-wise than traditional "tin can" module designs.

An expandable habitat with 100 cubic meters (3,530 cubic feet) of pressurized volume, for example, would be "at least an order of magnitude cheaper" than a comparable metallic one, Kemmer said. (For perspective: The ISS offers 388 cubic meters, or 13,700 cubic feet, of habitable volume, not including the space provided by visiting vehicles.)

This is not a sci-fi concept; three expandable module prototypes are actually circling Earth right now. They are Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, which are free fliers that launched in 2006 and 2007 respectively, and the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), which has been attached to the ISS since 2016.

All three were built by Nevada-based company Bigelow Aerospace, which closed its doors in 2020. The pressure-restraining hulls for Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 were designed and manufactured by Thin Red Line Aerospace, a small Canadian company run by Maxim de Jong Max Space's other co-founder.

The new startup, which has been in operation for about a year, is commercializing Thin Red Line Aerospace technology, Kemmer and de Jong said. But that tech isn't just a Genesis retread.

"It's a very, very, very different approach, where you're just putting fibers in an uncoupled scenario where they don't conflict with one another," de Jong told Space.com on Tuesday. The result, he and Kemmer said, is a cost-effective module that expands in a predictable and reliable way, and is highly scalable to larger sizes.

The new tech will get its first off-Earth test just two years from now, if all goes according to plan: Max Space has booked a spot on a SpaceX rideshare launch in 2026.

That mission will send a module the size of two large suitcases to orbit. However, that's the habitat's compressed configuration. Once deployed, it will expand to a pressurized volume of 20 cubic meters (706 cubic feet).

This deployment will set a new record for expandable habitats. The two Genesis prototypes both feature 11.5 cubic meters (406 cubic feet) of internal volume, while BEAM has 16 cubic meters (565 cubic feet).

Max Space has already built a full-size prototype of the first flight unit, which the company is using for ground testing, Kemmer said. It has started manufacturing the flight vehicle, which will not feature life-support systems but will have the same shielding and strength as human-rated versions.

Related: NASA's moon-orbiting space station will be claustrophobic, architect says

Max Space plans to keep moving fast after this pioneering module makes it to orbit. The startup aims to launch its first 100-cubic-meter (3,531 cubic feet) module in 2027 and to get a 1,000-cubic-meter (35,314 cubic feet) behemoth up by 2030. Even larger variants could potentially launch thereafter, aboard SpaceX's Starship megarocket or Blue Origin's New Glenn vehicle, the company said.

The goal is to provide a variety of destinations to a range of customers, from pharmaceutical companies that want to mass-produce medicines in microgravity to commercial space stations that want to expand their living space all the way to movie studios looking to film in orbit.

"We have several space production companies that we're talking to," Kemmer said. The company has already secured some customer contracts, including from the U.S. Space Force, he added.

But Earth orbit will be just the starting point for Max Space modules, if all goes according to plan.

"My dream is to have a city on the moon before I die," Kemmer said. "So I look at this like, this is going to be the habitat, the structures, that are going to go inside the lava tubes buried under the [lunar] surface."

The company's modules would then make their way to Mars, if all goes well, for Max Space wants to be a key enabler of off-Earth settlement. Indeed, that's why Kemmer and de Jong founded the company to help humanity extend its footprint out into the solar system.

"That was the entire reason," Kemmer said.

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Could these big expandable habitats help humanity settle the moon and Mars? - Space.com