TL;DR ver
- The total cost is expected to be at least $10 billion.
- The development cost of the Mars Sample Return is now between $8 to $9 billion.
- The other billion or two in costs are for launch, the five years of operations, and the construction of new facilities for storing and studying the samples.
About the mission
NASA’s Sample Retrieval Lander would touch down on Mars and remain in place to receive a diverse collection of scientifically curated samples of Martian rock already collected and cached by NASA’s Perseverance rover.
The lander would be the first ever to bring along a rocket — NASA’s Mars Ascent Vehicle — and two helicopters, to help achieve the goal of bringing the samples safely to Earth for study.
So the total anticipated cost for development and 5 years of operation is like, 1.2% of the US military budget for just 2024. Say 5 years for development and 5 years of operation, that’s 0.12% of the military budget per year.
That doesn’t sound that massive to me. In the scope of things.
Things like this that are done for the first time tend to be have large price tags. As we get better at it, the price tag will lower.
