NASA Loses Rock Sample on Mars

What happened to the rock sample?🤔

NASA was on a sample mission to Mars using Perseverance Rover (August 6) which has a robotic 7 foot arm at the end of which there is a coring and drilling system. All seemed well 👍until it was discovered that the tube which should have contained a finger sized dust-coated rock sample, didn't! 😮😯 Why? 🤔 It's not clear, other than the surface of Mars is not easy to bore into. It's crumbly rock so hard to grasp. Some report that NASA was attempting to collect soil samples too, which is especially hard to collect, hence the empty container. Had the camera and probe seen and been able to assess a sample in the tube then Perseverance Rover would have sealed it in titanium cylinders. However, this time this part of the process wasn't necessary! 

On Crater Jezero:

Perseverance landed in February on the crater Jezero which, it is thought, had a lake billions of years ago hence, might have ancient micro-organisms. So boring into the paleolake-bed might yield interesting samples. Collect a sample or two and you might find out what life, if any, lived on the crater, Jezero, and whether deposits found there were due to the lake or volcanic activity. Despite the confusion over what may have happened to the sample, the robot has around 40 sample containers in total so it's good to go 🙂 for many more rock samples which will be sent back to earth to be analysed. That is if they stay in the tube or even make it to the tube in the first place. 😞

Seitah: a better alternative site for samples?

The next plan is to take samples from a different area, a sandy one (sand dunes) called Seitah, to see if that works better.😲 I'm not seeing it! NASA's explanation for this missing rock sample is that the ground was softer than they calculated for when constructing it but, nevertheless, it was not due to any design flaws. However, won't sand have the same problem of being too grainy to collect a sample? 

NASA have confidence in Perseverance Rover and think that there's nothing wrong with the caching (collecting core rock and soil examples) system it's just that the rock reacted differently than expected! 🙃9 years and 2 billion dollars later, NASA isn't willing to give up on collecting rock samples from Mars.💪

Testing for Oxygen:

Aside from looking for signs of a past life on Mars by collecting samples, the other main aim for this Mars mission is testing for oxygen present in the Martian atmosphere to prepare for humans landing on Mars.

Asking Questions:

However, boring holes into Mars is surely problematic! If the rock sample crumbled then the more holes you dig the more of Mars will crumble. Is it wise to bore into crumbling rock? 🤔 How will that affect the planet and will it cause more space debris? 😒If the rock sample was too resistant then continuing to bore more holes may damage Mars' surface and inner layer. Can the drilling destabilise planet Mars? 🤔 Just because such drilling is successful on earth does it follow that it'll be so in space? Does caching in space release microbes (which includes bacteria) into the atmosphere in Mars and in space? Does collecting and bringing back samples from Mars, which surely still contain microbes and types of bacteria currently unknown to scientists, introduce potentially dangerous bacteria on earth as it is examined and stored by scientists? 😕

Capitalism in Space:

Furthermore, there's an asteroid orbiting space and already there's talk of mining it because its worth is astronomical! 😮It runs into quadrillions! 😯This raises the inevitable question: Is space exploration a case of love of science, ❤ especially space science, or is it back to just financial greed. 💰💰💰💰🤑Has capitalism reached space already? Have we not learnt anything 🙄 from realising that mining and exploiting finite natural resources causes environmental damage? 😥