NASA’s interim leader Sean Duffy didn’t make it through a single sentence in his announcement that the agency’s Mars Perseverance rover had spotted “potential biosignatures” on the Red Planet last year without sucking up to president Donald Trump.
While we’re still far from a definitive conclusion about current or ancient life on Mars, it was an exciting finding, with a sampled rock containing minerals closely associated with Earth-based microbial life.
The only problem? The Trump administration has made it clear that it’s not interested in returning the samples taken by NASA’s Perseverance rover back to Earth for laboratory analysis.
The agency’s Mars Sample Return mission had been a hot-button topic for years, with lawmakers balking at the proposed plan’s astronomical price tag of $11 billion. But the Trump administration wants to nix the mission altogether in its potentially devastating 2026 budget proposal, alongside dozens of other planetary science missions.
In other words, as much as Duffy glazes Trump publicly, in reality, Trump is our planet’s number one obstacle to following up on NASA’s blockbuster findings about life on Mars.
As Ars Technica reports, Duffy had very little to add when needled by reporters this week about the Trump administration’s commitment to returning the Mars samples, clumsily avoiding making any promises.
“What we’re going to do is look at our budget, so we look at our timing, and you know, how do we spend money better?” he told one reporter. “And you know, what technology do we have to get samples back more quickly? And so that’s a current analysis that’s happening right now.”
Duffy also reiterated that the Trump administration was pouring all of its resources into sending “our boots to the Moon and to Mars” — efforts that would be far more complex, expensive, and time-intensive than a sample return mission. (And that’s if sending astronauts to the Red Planet is even feasible in the first place.)
To experts, canceling the Mars Sample Return mission would be an enormous and costly mistake.
“Our understanding of Mars has gotten to the point that the questions we’re asking can best be addressed with returned samples,” University of Colorado Boulder senior research scientist Bruce Jakosky told Space.com earlier this year.
“To decide not to return them, or to put it off to an indefinite future time with human missions would be to take a major step back in exploring the solar system and the universe and in continuing to develop our scientific understanding of the world around us,” he added.
Jakosky also explained that such a mission could lay important groundwork for future crewed missions to the Red Planet, and “allow us to solve important problems in planetary protection so that we don’t put the Earth at risk from possible Martian microbes.”
Instead, the Trump administration wants to award the private space industry $1 billion to send the first humans to Mars.
What that plan looks like remains uncertain as ever — but considering the president’s complicated relationship with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, there’s a chance NASA will attempt to tap the space firm’s interplanetary Starship spacecraft for such a journey.
But if Musk’s abysmal track record when it comes to timelines is anything to go by, sending a crew to Mars could take a very long time. The company has encountered major headwinds in its efforts to turn its Starship super heavy launch platform into a reality.
And considering the major steps China has taken in its efforts to explore the Moon and Mars, there’s a good chance the United States could be beaten to the punch. China is hoping to launch its own Mars sample return as soon as 2028.
During this week’s press conference, Ars senior space reporter Eric Berger asked Duffy whether he was comfortable with losing such a key achievement to its geopolitical rival.
Duffy was seemingly unprepared, falling far short of making any commitments.
“We’re making the right calls for America and for our partners,” the former TV host assured. “And again, we lead, and we are going to continue to lead, but it’s always important that we keep pushing. We have to push because we are in another space race.”
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