This will easily be the most Kerbal thing humanity as attempted. It has everything, multiple launches, just slaming your return vehicle into the ground, complex docking procedures and more!

The logistics of this mission is crazy, I know they are going to pull it off, but 4 separate parts rendezvousing on another planet is absurd

Interesting thing about the Soviet proposal is that there were plans to conduct two Proton launches within 20 seconds of each other from adjacent launch pads

You can roughly tell how old a project is, based on the quality of the CGI associated with it.

Mars sample return has been 10 years in the future for over 40 years, but now it might actually really be 10 year in the future 🙂

They used to call Mars sample return missions "Apollo Without Astronauts", because it is such a difficult and expensive endeavor.

As someone that has been working on this project for many years, Scott's description of the technical details very good. I'm going to share the link with others as the best description that I've seen.

16:00 Ah yes, why use aerobreaking when you could use the much faster lithobreaking?

the N1 didn't really go very far, but it really did go everywhere

When the world is such a crazy, chaotic place... it's truly calming to have Scott Manley to talk about space and to give me some relief. Thanks Scott!

My problem with this is it’s so complex that if there’s any failure where the samples are lost that’s literally decades to restart the same process from sample collection again even if you have the blueprints figured out.

Lithobraking as a legit method of landing. I like that.

To get some serious sample they would have to go the geological way, do borings. That means boring equipment, drills... Now get that automated, so it assembles itself, drills a hole, extracts a 6ft long sample from a desired depth, packs it in the return craft... I got a headache just thinking about it.

A part of my brain hears “bring back hundreds of pounds of rocks” and instantly reminds me of Robert Scott’s expedition dying in Antarctica hauling rocks from the South Pole. As much as I want to see people land on Mars, there’s something to applaud that we’ve developed robotic technologies that can do a lot of this work with a lot more safety.

A lot of mechanical parts, a lot of possible failures... most people probably don't understand the complexity of a project where you have a lot of moving parts that might get jammed, corroded, material fatigue, etc, so I would like to express my admiration to all the engineers working in this project and I wish them the best of luck on this. Science and exploration are the best way of improving our understanding of the universe.

Hey Scott! Can you make a video talking more about planetary contamination please? I've always wondered what the regulations and procedures were for that sort of thing.

I saw images of the sample canisters. My question is, given the long duration of this mission, won't the capsules be buried under the soil after repeated annual martian storms?

Wow, it seems quite complicated Great walkthrough video as always 👍😀 Thanks for sharing your thoughts with all of us 👍😀

Scott. You explain everything in such detail that anybody can understand what you are saying. Keep up the good work. It's nice to have someone with your knowledge that is willing to keep the public informed. Thank you for that.

Informative, well researched and perfectly presented - AS ALWAYS! Thanks 😊!

Me being granted one wish: "An evening of drinking beer with Scott Manley. That'd lift my spirits now!"

Thanks Scott. I really appreciate your news hounding. I have reasons to believe I won't live long enough to see these things happen. It is so sad that we have not had continuity since first landing on the moon. We are late for a planet defense system as well. We are human beings and we have traditionally discovered that time runs out.

oh man this is awesome ive been reading and wondering about this topic for the past few days! thank you Scott!

Thanks Scott!! Looks incredible complex.

Having the landing system on earth be a container that just falls from the sky and survives perfectly intact is crazy and amazing! :D

Not into ASMR, but listening to Scott talk on any subject makes me feel super relaxed. I couldn't tell you exactly what it is, other than he instills a sense of trust in me that I seldom feel when listening to others.

Very cool video as always! Thoroughly enjoyed this and this is why I love this channel

I can only imagine how closely guarded those samples will be! The remaining Moon rocks have their own special storage vault.

All I can say is the sample return mission had better have cameras all over the damn place, because I want to see the lander yeet the return rocket into the air before it lights off.

For the 1/8 of the cost of Twitter we can have a Mar's sample return mission

Scott - thank you for yet another fascinating episode!

Thanks for the quick summary of hte plans for Mars sample return. Thank you, again. Great story.

For a previous Mars Rover the great scientists had us put rocks and soil in a vacuum chamber so they could do equipment testing, we had to tell them we can't pump down the chamber with dirt and rocks in there. 😁

2033 sample return plan means that there is a fair chance that SpaceX will send "something" there before that. Imagine an Elon type approach: - Spaceship lands in 2027. - Places a small electric excavator on the ground. - Collects a few tons of random dust and rocks and dumps it into a container. - Returns with it as a "possibly useful mass simulator".

As always, well done, sir.

Another excellent, well researched, and very informative report. Well done.

Could you do a video on the failed Phobos mission? I’d love to know more about its goals and what went wrong

We're putting a lot of cultural emphasis on an aspect of space utilization that is not resource efficient: that is, the colonization of barren planets.

Great Vlog Scott really interesting Thank you Did you see the Axion Presentation they showed the Real SKYLAB that was really Cool to see after your Lego Build

at 8:17, 10/10 gif usage there. I love it

Because Mars is far, rocks are heavy, fuel is heavy, and it's an entirely different animal to send a vehicle capable of a one way mission vs. one capable of autonomously landing, collecting samples, then relaunching back to earth.

Liked it and commented just to stimulate the algorithm for you Scott

I liked the picture of the team celebrating after throwing the test rocket, it just reminds me how many people are working on so many parts of this.

Have you ever considered doing a series of videos on canceled projects. You mentioned that Phobos sample return mission and that was something I had never heard of before. Would be interesting and learn more about stuff like that.

"This stuff isn't rocket science. If it was, it'd have a better explanation" We need this on a t-shirt.

My greatest wish is for NASA to drill down over 20 feet deep on Mars, Venus, and the moon. I have always wondered if a temperate zone (50-55°f) similar to Earth's just below the surface or maybe it's different. It would be great to know with surety whether there could be an entire habitable zone or area not previously considered or tested for.

You stuffed a lot of info into a video that ran just under 19 minutes, Scott. Much appreciated!!! I'm a wee bit nervous about the last leg, landing in Nevada, though. The sample capsule will be entering Earth's atmosphere at around 20 km/sec. Granted it will be slowed down by atmospheric drag, but with no parachute it will hit the ground with a hell of a wallop. What if it hits a big rock instead of relatively softer sand? Hey! Maybe you could simulate it with Kerbal?

awesome content Scott, Thank you.

I look forward to this mission because it's Kerbal as heck

Obviously there is a generation of engineers at nasa, who first learned their craft on ksp. Now they start lithobreaking return capsules.

Scott, you are almost getting your face into the magic 1/3 upper portion of this video. Congratulations.

My eyes start to tear a little bit every time I hear your theme song in end credits - such an adorably beautiful melancholical atmosphere in it for 'flying safe in deep cosmos' 💙💛

We could learn so much by collecting cores from other planets. I can imagine that one part of space colonization will be examining extraterrestrial core samples.

Hey Scott. Question: With the Earth having over 3.6 times the diameter of the moon and therefore occupying over 12 times the area (as seen from a distance, say, from the moon), *and* roughly 3 times the albedo/reflectance of the moon, then the earth should be, by my calculation, over 30 times brighter (i.e. hugely more striking an object) in the moon's 'sky' than the moon is in earth's sky. I know about the famous 'earthrise' image, taken from an Apollo mission, but how come the view of the earth from the lunar surface barely gets noticed, or mentioned?

13:46, all sort of smaller missiles like guided anti tank and manpads also uses the toss and fire method, Also most missiles from planes are drop then fire, exception is rail launched ones but they compromise stealth

Great video, Scott...👍

the satellite that went to pluto came close to collecting rock samples

I still can't see what the sample fetch rover does that Perseverance couldn't have done by itself. It seems to store the samples in a rack on its exterior and if Perseverance had done that, they had been accessible by another rover even after a failure.

Great segment.

I'm working on this!!! (On the first stage solid rocket motor - moved across the country for the job)

Interesting that we could be running into a Wait Calculation situation with sample return from Mars. With a minimum decade timescale for sample return it's not inconceivable that we complete a manned mission inside that window, making obsolete the sample return mission.

Thank you Scott! It is great to see content uploaded today that isn't about the current news cycle. You are an intellectual island in an ocean of ignorance. Thanks You!

Excellent video!

My concern is this is so complex and expensive that we'll lose the Uranus orbiter to pay for Mars sample return. Given a choice of one or the other, I'd far rather have the Uranus orbiter. It's less risky and personally I suspect it will provide a better science return. And if the Uranus orbiter gets delayed, we miss the launch windows with Jupiter gravity assist at which point it takes a bigger (and more expensive) rocket like SLS or StarShip to launch Uranus orbiter and it still takes years longer to get there. Uranus orbiter has a time limited window, Mars sample return can be done any time and I feel is the wrong one to prioritise.

14:20 That whole sequence of catching the sample container and stowing it away looks so fiddly

With dust storms won't these sample vessels be covered up after the dust storms. So how do they find these sample vessels must have a high degree of coverage?

You really nailed the pronounciation of "grunt". Satisfying.

Nice work

doesnt sound too unrealistic to throw the rocket into the air since gravity is lower also for a bigger timewindow to start the thing

I feel like every time a robot arm is involved, its a declaration of "we're not really sure what we have to do, and we might need versatility at the expense of complexity" 1st - I get it 2nd - probably didnt need that one 3rd - yall dont even actually know what youre doing yet

Great video! 👍

Side note: the minuteman missile is a three stage solid-fuel rocket with extremely tight terminal accuracy constraints. I think it has RCS on the payload, but not much. What it does is allow shutting off the 3rd stage by dumping the internal pressure in the casing via blow-out panels. Something I've not heard much talk about is tricks you can do near the end of the boost of a non-throttle-able rocket to more or less use cosine losses to in effect "throttle" the rocket. More specifically if you have a target point you are trying to hit where some of the state space doesn't matter (i.e. if you don't care about when you get there or maybe what direction you are going) you can finish your burn pointing in a direction that moves all the of the variability caused by uncertainty in when the burn ends in the irrelevant dimensions and none of it in relevant dimensions. For an ICBM that's easy as you only care about 3 of the 6 parameters (X, Y and Z but not t, ω, or Ω). For a sample return you may only need to care a lot about the inclination and ascending node and only a little about the other 4 parameters. You need RCS on one side or the other for the final docking anyway so a "close enough" orbit can have more than a bit of wiggle room in it.

Will be interesting to see with what missions NASA will come up in the next 10 years. With chinas massive push into space, NASA budget is basically set to increase consistently over the next years.

I really don’t understand why they are still considering the sample return option when it is proven to be far more cost effective and less risky to just keep sending fit for purpose remote science tools that don’t need to deal with the challenges of the return mission.

This plan is so awesome and mind blowing! I freaking love it that the mars rocket is going to launch like a missile and that the return vehicle is going to simply do a Halo ODST drop to Earth!

Hey Scott I really like your videos, they are well reasearched, but I would really love if you would put the sources of images, for example 10:51 in the video description :)

Last time I was this early, early jokes weren't stale yet.

I always wonder how missions will change if/when Starship reduces the cost of launches and increases the mass.

17:20 "Dubstorm" I like that :D

"it will be embarrissing if it fails" what an epitaph.

Is there any possibility of a SpaceX astronaut getting there first and picking up the samples by hand?

With that landing approach, lets just hope it will land in an intended area XD

When you mentioned submarine-launched ballistic missiles being launched with a charge I recall a documentary which claimed that the Trident D5 specifically uses steam for that purpose, and that steam is created by firing a rocket engine into a tank of water before launch

The samples will undoubtedly be of great value to scientists.

Just have humans in Starship bring the samples back. Of course, in that case they would just bring a hammer and a shovel, go outside, and collect their own samples. 😀

I hope the return missions aren't a casualty of the eternal NASA budget troubles. I always feel like success is a Tertiary Objective for NASA and pleasing subcontractors and politicians are the primary and secondary objectives. I bet they launch the return mission, but there's a problem and a manned mission enabled from SpaceX Starship saves it. Calling it now, my credentials: I write space music. (lol)

Scott Manley i’ve been going insane after I Watched your video. After I seen The Viking lander simple return Mission I thought the concept art was really cool how did you get it?

Fobos-Grunt was in 2011, you're thinking of Mars '96 (which met with a similar fate, so it's easy enough to confuse them)

By the time NASA gets samples back from Mars, SpaceX will be taxing the exports, and negotiating interplanetary treaties...

I wonder if something like an orbital skyhook is possible on a weak atmosphere planet like mars, given that the sample is small, atmosphere density is low and gravity is weak it doesnt sound that impossible i think

What about the propose Chinese Mars sample return mission that supposed to launch around the same time as this one.

16:13 A good idea, I guess, after the sample return mission that smashed into the Utah desert, contaminating all the samples...

Honestly believe that a starship mission with people will bring stuff back before nasas current plan happens

Starship will be an immediate success at every step. We should cancel every space program in existence because Starship will supersede them. NOT! I'm tremendously excited about what Elon & SpaceX have done with F9 and even more excited by Starship - but It has many steps to prove itself.

Kerbal gives a tip of the iceberg perspective in terms of how difficult this is to do anything away from earth

7:58 and yet, it's the most powerful and advanced space proof cpu available I really hope you make a video about semiconductors for the space exploration, information in internet is not enough to justify that perseverance has an IBM cpu design while ingenuity has an snapdragon 801, a soc used in flagship smartphones not so far away Another fun fact is that the James webb telescope has an internal SSD of only 68gb! I mean, there is really a lot to explain in electronics for the space

I’d say NASA’s budget should go on little rovers and core drills and containment canisters. Bundle all that inside a payload module and stick it inside Starship. Let SpaceX do the rocketry and NASA do the high tech science part.

0:30 "look at it with microscopes" You can if you put one on it; but they didn't. Given the central preoccupation with detecting life on Mars, I'd have thought a real --high power--biology microscope ~1 micron resolution would be a priority over mass spectrometers and the like. What are the chances of actually seeing an unequivocal microbe in sample after sample of fine-crushed sedimentary rock? Welp, the chances of seeing one if you _don't_ send a microscope are... zero. Fact is, by the time they get a sample-return rocket to Mars and back, SpaceX will have already sent an unmanned probe, with tons of instruments, including mass spectrometers, gas chromatographs, seismometers, a complete microchemistry lab, microscopes, electron microscopes, scanning electron microscopes, X-ray microscopes...

Good ol Man Scottley

13:20 yeah that's such a bittersweet truth... "we already have experience lighting solid rocket motors in motion" "how?" "ICBM's" 👀