To be fair, Apollo engineering failed badly on similar problems (with moon samples),
- "But in spite of all this beautiful complexity, there were just basic, fundamental mistakes,” Dr. Degroot said."
- "NASA officials were well aware that the lab wasn’t perfect. Dr. Degroot’s paper details many of the findings from inspections and tests that revealed gloveboxes and sterilizing autoclaves that cracked, leaked or flooded."
(The goal in that case wasn't to protect the sample integrity, but to contain alien pathogens).
late edit: Another related example (lunar soil),
- "Although this material has been isolated in vacuum-packed bottles, it is now unusable for detailed chemical or mechanical analysis—the gritty particles deteriorated the knife-edge indium seals of the vacuum bottles; air has slowly leaked in."
I think they were trying to avoid the scenario: move fast, break things, contaminate $1B sample.
Or another scenario, which is a possibility when personalities in charge don't get enough sleep: move fast, break things, snort lines of $1B asteroid dust on Rogan.
Its got to get to orbit first, you have to launch enough of them to refuel the first one. I have no doubt they will get them to work, but its not an option yet.
I'm pretty sure they could get enough methane out of Elon Musk running his mouth to send a probe to Pluto. Probably have enough left over to catch up with Voyager 1.
To be fair, Apollo engineering failed badly on similar problems (with moon samples),
- "But in spite of all this beautiful complexity, there were just basic, fundamental mistakes,” Dr. Degroot said."
- "NASA officials were well aware that the lab wasn’t perfect. Dr. Degroot’s paper details many of the findings from inspections and tests that revealed gloveboxes and sterilizing autoclaves that cracked, leaked or flooded."
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/09/science/nasa-moon-quarant...
https://gwern.net/doc/existential-risk/2023-degroot.pdf (pdf)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36266360 (33 comments)
(The goal in that case wasn't to protect the sample integrity, but to contain alien pathogens).
late edit: Another related example (lunar soil),
- "Although this material has been isolated in vacuum-packed bottles, it is now unusable for detailed chemical or mechanical analysis—the gritty particles deteriorated the knife-edge indium seals of the vacuum bottles; air has slowly leaked in."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_soil#Availability_on_Ear...