--- title: "Uh Oh, the Cost of NASA’s Mars Sample Return Mission Is Spiralling Out of Control" description: "The costs associated with NASA's ambitious Mars Sample Return mission keep growing and growing by the billions, alarming officials." date: "2023-06-23" modified: "2023-06-23" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-mars-sample-return-mission-cost" categories: - "Astronomy" - "Mars" - "NASA" - "Space" tags: - "mars" - "mars samples" - "NASA" - "the digest" --- # Uh Oh, the Cost of NASA’s Mars Sample Return Mission Is Spiralling Out of Control ![The costs associated with NASA's ambitious Mars Sample Return mission keep growing and growing by the billions, alarming officials.]() *\Image: NASA\* ## Throw Rocks The costs associated with NASA's ambitious [Mars Sample Return mission]() keep growing and growing by the billions, alarming officials. Insider sources [told *Ars Technica*]() that leaders from NASA and its Jet Propulsion Laboratory revealed during a meeting last week that the estimated costs of the operation, which previously were [set at around $4.4 billion](), had doubled to between $8 and $9 billion. Those billions, as JPL program manager Richard Cook and NASA mission director Jeff Gramling reportedly told the agency's leaders, would only account for testing and building the sample return portion and would not include launch, operating, or construction costs for a new receiving facility on Earth. Adding that in, the price tag would balloon to about $10 billion. Split up year-by-year, that'd make the mission even more expensive than the already [ludicrously expensive]() James Webb Space Telescope, according to the report. "This was the thing that gave me sleepless nights toward the end of my tenure at NASA and even after I left," former chief of NASA's science programs Thomas Zurbuchen, who left the agency at the end of 2022, told *Ars* at the time. "I think there's a crisis going on." ## Line Goes Up As the [American Institute of Physics noted]() in a news release about the Mars Sample Return mission earlier this year, lawmakers were already balking at the gargantuan costs of the pursuit. During a [March town hall](), Gramling said that there are a number of factors behind the mission's swelling costs. "We’re seeing growth in long-lead times, which means we’re having to execute contracts earlier," the mission director said. "We’re seeing differences coming back in cost beyond what we’ve experienced in the past or beyond what our in-house estimates suggest they should cost. And our supplier base is contracted." "And of course," he added, "on top of that there’s also inflation." To be fair, the MSR has been considered a top priority not just by NASA but by the greater scientific community as well, as evidenced by the results of the [National Academies' planetary science decadal survey](). Now, experts are worried that the mission could turn into the next James Webb Space Telescope for NASA, a project that was infamously mired in budget overruns and over a decade's worth of delays. "It's the same scope as Webb in terms of cost but a much, much narrower scope in terms of science," Paul Byrne, a planetary scientist at Washington University, told *Ars*. "That’s really problematic." **More on Mars:** [*Scientists Detect Radioactive Heat Source Inside Mars*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()