NASA PROPOSES CHEAPER AND QUICKER WAY TO GET MARS ROCKS AND SOIL TO EARTH

NASA is pitching a cheaper and quicker way of getting rocks and soil back from Mars, after seeing its original plan swell to $11 billion.

- 

Administrator Bill Nelson presented a revised scenario less than two weeks before stepping down as NASA's chief when President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated.

Nelson said he “pulled the plug” months ago on the original sample return plan given the soaring costs and the delay in getting anything back from Mars before 2040.

NASA last year asked industry and others to come up with better options to ensure the samples collected in cigar-size tubes by NASA’s Perseverance rover arrive here in the 2030s, well ahead of astronauts venturing to the red planet.