Chris Impey, University of Arizona

A critical NASA mission in the search for life beyond Earth, Mars Sample Return, is in trouble. Its budget has ballooned from US$5 billion to over $11 billion, and the sample return date may slip from the end of this decade to 2040.

The mission would be the first to try to return rock samples from Mars to Earth so scientists can analyze them for signs of past life.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said during a press conference on April 15, 2024, that the mission as currently conceived is too expensive and too slow. NASA gave private companies a month to submit proposals for bringing the samples back in a quicker and more affordable way.

As an astronomer who studies cosmology and has written a book about early missions to Mars, I've been watching the sample return saga play out. Mars is the nearest and best place to search for life beyond Earth, and if this ambitious NASA mission unraveled, scientists would lose their chance to learn much more about the red planet.

The habitability of Mars

The first NASA missions to reach the surface of Mars in 1976 revealed the planet as a frigid desert, uninhabitable without a thick atmosphere to shield life from the Sun's ultraviolet radiation. But studies conducted over the past decade suggest that the planet may have been much warmer and wetter several billion years ago.

The Curiosity and Perseverance rovers have each shown that the planet's early environment was suitable for microbial life.

They found the chemical building blocks of life and signs of surface water in the distant past. Curiosity, which landed on Mars in 2012, is still active; its twin, Perseverance, which landed on Mars in 2021, will play a crucial role in the sample return mission.

Why astronomers want Mars samples

The first time NASA looked for life in a Mars rock was in 1996. Scientists claimed they had discovered microscopic fossils of bacteria in the Martian meteorite ALH84001. This meteorite is a piece of Mars that landed in Antarctica 13,000 years ago and was recovered in 1984. Scientists disagreed over whether the meteorite really had ever harbored biology, and today most scientists agree that there's not enough evidence to say that the rock contains fossils.

Several hundred Martian meteorites have been found on Earth in the past 40 years. They're free samples that fell to Earth, so while it might seem intuitive to study them, scientists can't tell where on Mars these meteorites originated. Also, they were blasted off the planet's surface by impacts, and those violent events could have easily destroyed or altered subtle evidence of life in the rock.

There's no substitute for bringing back samples from a region known to have been hospitable to life in the past. As a result, the agency is facing a price tag of $700 million per ounce, making these samples the most expensive material ever gathered.

A compelling and complex mission

Bringing Mars rocks back to Earth is the most challenging mission NASA has ever attempted, and the first stage has already started.

Perseverance has collected over two dozen rock and soil samples, depositing them on the floor of the Jezero Crater, a region that was probably once flooded with water and could have harbored life. The rover inserts the samples in containers the size of test tubes. Once the rover fills all the sample tubes, it will gather them and bring them to the spot where NASA's Sample Retrieval Lander will land. The Sample Retrieval Lander includes a rocket to get the samples into orbit around Mars.

The European Space Agency has designed an Earth Return Orbiter, which will rendezvous with the rocket in orbit and capture the basketball-sized sample container. The samples will then be automatically sealed into a biocontainment system and transferred to an Earth entry capsule, which is part of the Earth Return Orbiter. After the long trip home, the entry capsule will parachute to the Earth's surface.

The complex choreography of this mission, which involves a rover, a lander, a rocket, an orbiter and the coordination of two space agencies, is unprecedented. It's the culprit behind the ballooning budget and the lengthy timeline.

Sample return breaks the bank

Mars Sample Return has blown a hole in NASA's budget, which threatens other missions that need funding.

The NASA center behind the mission, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, just laid off over 500 employees. It's likely that Mars Sample Return's budget partly caused the layoffs, but they also came down to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory having an overfull plate of planetary missions and suffering budget cuts.

Within the past year, an independent review board report and a report from the NASA Office of Inspector General raised deep concerns about the viability of the sample return mission. These reports described the mission's design as overly complex and noted issues such as inflation, supply chain problems and unrealistic costs and schedule estimates.

NASA is also feeling the heat from Congress. For fiscal year 2024, the Senate Appropriations Committee cut NASA's planetary science budget by over half a billion dollars. If NASA can't keep a lid on the costs, the mission might even get canceled.

Thinking out of the box

Faced with these challenges, NASA has put out a call for innovative designs from private industry, with a goal of shrinking the mission's cost and complexity. Proposals are due by May 17, which is an extremely tight timeline for such a challenging design effort. And it'll be hard for private companies to improve on the plan that experts at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory had over a decade to put together.

An important potential player in this situation is the commercial space company SpaceX. NASA is already partnering with SpaceX on America's return to the Moon. For the Artemis III mission, SpaceX will attempt to land humans on the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years.

However, the massive Starship rocket that SpaceX will use for Artemis has had only three test flights and needs a lot more development before NASA will trust it with a human cargo.

In principle, a Starship rocket could bring back a large payload of Mars rocks in a single two-year mission and at far lower cost. But Starship comes with great risks and uncertainties. It's not clear whether that rocket could return the samples that Perseverance has already gathered.

Starship uses a launchpad, and it would need to be refueled for a return journey. But there's no launchpad or fueling station at the Jezero Crater. Starship is designed to carry people, but if astronauts go to Mars to collect the samples, SpaceX will need a Starship rocket that's even bigger than the one it has tested so far.

Sending astronauts also carries extra risk and cost, and a strategy of using people might end up more complicated than NASA's current plan.

With all these pressures and constraints, NASA has chosen to see whether the private sector can come up with a winning solution. We'll know the answer next month.

Chris Impey, University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy, University of Arizona

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Christopher Ali, Penn State

Millions of Americans still don't have access to high-speed internet. Christopher Ali, a professor of telecommunications at Penn State University, discusses who lacks access to broadband and how the federal government – with a US$65 billion commitment – is trying to bring more people online.

The Conversation has collaborated with SciLine to bring you highlights from the discussion that have been edited for brevity and clarity.

What is broadband internet?

Christopher Ali: Broadband internet, often just called broadband, is the technical term for high-speed internet connectivity.

The Federal Communications Commission, which is in charge of setting an official definition for broadband in the country, defines broadband as an always-on internet connection of 100 megabits-per-second download and 20 megabits-per-second upload.

But what high-speed internet fundamentally means to Americans is do we have the connectivity necessary to go about our digital lives. Can we stream Netflix? Can we go on Zoom? Can we file our taxes? Can we do our homework? Can we do our jobs? Can we game?

What can you tell us about disparities in broadband access?

Christopher Ali: One of the really frustrating things is, despite millions – tens of millions – of dollars spent on broadband mapping, we are still unsure of who is underconnected throughout the country.

Right now, the FCC reports that 7.2 million people lack access, but the commission numbers have been historically suspect. As a result, there are no doubt many more who are unserved and undercounted. In fact, the FCC repeatedly receives challenges to its broadband map.

Back in 2021, for instance, when the FCC reported that about 14 million people lacked internet access, an independent review found that 42 million people lacked access. That's a huge discrepancy.

But one thing is certain: Broadband deserts are most often found in rural, remote and Indigenous areas.

It's also clear that cost is part of the issue. Here in the U.S., we pay a tremendous amount of money – the most for internet access monthly than almost any other country in the developed world.

A program called the Affordable Connectivity Program subsidizes broadband for low-income families, and 50 million families across the country are eligible.

What benefits does broadband access provide?

Christopher Ali: Broadband access can aid with economic development. It can be a game changer when it comes to telehealth, especially for rural, remote and Indigenous communities, which often don't have enough doctors and nurses. With telehealth, you can suddenly connect with a health care professional.

It aids in education. Some studies have found that access to broadband can impact grades and SAT scores, although there is disagreement about this. But the opportunities for students with broadband are undeniable – like applying online for college and student aid.

It contributes to civic engagement, allowing voters to contact local officials online. It impacts public safety, both in terms of our own safety as members of the public but also by allowing first responders to communicate online with their dispatch.

Broadband also helps sometimes with cultural enrichment, and we see this a lot with Indigenous communities, which can stream cultural and traditional events.

And it improves quality of life. Everyone enjoys being able to FaceTime with family and friends and go shopping online. These things were particularly essential during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program, passed as part of the 2023 infrastructure bill, allocates $42 billion in federal funds to expand broadband infrastructure. How can communities maximize its impact?

Christopher Ali: The money from the BEAD program is going to be managed by the states and not by the federal government. Each state receives a chunk of money, depending on the number of people who are unconnected. Texas, with more than 1 million unserved or underserved locations, will get $3.3 billion, the most of any state. Pennsylvania will get about $1.2 billion.

What states have done a particularly good job expanding broadband access?

Christopher Ali: Minnesota has done some amazing work over the past decade. As I discuss in my book “Farm Fresh Broadband: The Politics of Rural Connectivity,” Minnesota was one of the earliest states to create a broadband grant program – the Border-to-Border program – and has set really ambitious targets. Back in 2016, for instance, the state set up a goal of universal coverage at 100Mbps/20Mbps by 2026.

Another state is Virginia, which really got a wake-up call during the pandemic, and it mobilized a lot of the federal money that came down the pipes to empower counties, cooperatives and local ISPs.

Vermont has done something called communication union districts. They've allowed communities to come together to use public funding to deploy broadband networks.

Public networks are going to be a game changer because they empower communities to connect themselves and direct their own digital futures – either with municipally funded networks, or cooperatives, or some sort of public-private partnerships.

Watch the full interview to hear more.

SciLine is a free service based at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a nonprofit that helps journalists include scientific evidence and experts in their news stories.

Christopher Ali, Pioneers Chair in Telecommunications & Professor of Telecommunications, Penn State

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Seyram Avle, UMass Amherst and Jean Hardy, Michigan State University

Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreessen penned a 5,000-word manifesto in 2023 that gave a full-throated call for unrestricted technological progress to boost markets, broaden energy production, improve education and strengthen liberal democracy.

The billionaire, who made his fortune by co-founding Netscape – a 1990s-era company that made a pioneering web browser – espouses a concept known as “techno-optimism.” In summing it up, Andreessen writes, “We believe that there is no material problem – whether created by nature or by technology – that cannot be solved with more technology.”

The term techno-optimism isn't new; it began to appear after World War II. Nor is it in a state of decline, as Andreessen and other techno-optimists such as Elon Musk would have you believe. And yet Andreessen's essay made a big splash.

As scholars who study technology and society, we have observed that techno-optimism easily attaches itself to the public's desire for a better future. The questions of how that future will be built, what that future will look like and who will benefit from those changes are harder to answer.

Why techno-optimism matters

Techno-optimism is a blunt tool. It suggests that technological progress can solve every problem known to humans – a belief also known as techno-solutionism.

Its adherents object to commonsense guardrails or precautions, such as cities limiting the number of new Uber drivers to ease traffic congestion or protect cab drivers' livelihoods. They dismiss such regulations or restrictions as the concerns of Luddites – people who resist disruptive innovations.

In our view, some champions of techno-optimism, such as Bill Gates, rely on the cover of philanthropy to promote their techno-optimist causes. Others have argued that their philanthropic initiatives are essentially a public relations effort to burnish their reputations as they continue to control how technology is being used to address the world's problems.

The stakes of embracing techno-optimism are high – and not just in terms of the role that technology plays in society. There are also political, environmental and economic ramifications for holding these views. As an ideological position, it puts the interests of certain people – often those already wielding immense power and resources – over those of everyone else. Its cheerleaders can be willfully blind to the fact that most of society's problems, like technology, are made by humans.

Many scholars are keenly aware of the techno-optimism of social media that pervaded the 2010s. Back then, these technologies were breathlessly covered in the media – and promoted by investors and inventors – as an opportunity to connect the disconnected and bring information to anyone who might need it.

Yet, while offering superficial solutions to loneliness and other social problems, social media has failed to address their root structural causes. Those may include the erosion of public spaces, the decline of journalism and enduring digital divides.

Tech alone can't fix everything

Both of us have extensively researched economic development initiatives that seek to promote high-tech entrepreneurship in low-income communities in Ghana and the United States. State-run programs and public-private partnerships have sought to narrow digital divides and increase access to economic opportunity.

Many of these programs embrace a techno-optimistic mindset by investing in shiny, tech-heavy fixes without addressing the inequality that led to digital divides in the first place. Techno-optimism, in other words, pervades governments and nongovernmental organizations, just as it has influenced the thinking of billionaires like Andreessen.

Solving intractable problems such as persistent poverty requires a combination of solutions that sometimes, yes, includes technology. But they're complex. To us, insisting that there's a technological fix for every problem in the world seems not just optimistic, but also rather convenient if you happen to be among the richest people on Earth and in a position to profit from the technology industry.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has provided funding for The Conversation U.S. and provides funding for The Conversation internationally.

Seyram Avle, Associate Professor of Global Digital Media, UMass Amherst and Jean Hardy, Assistant Professor of Media & Information, Michigan State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.