NASA’s Perseverance rover is due to touch down Feb. 18 in Mars’ Jezero Crater, the site of an ancient lake and river delta which could harbor signs of fossilized microbial life.

Making recommendations is easy enough. Following them, as Mars Sample Return shows, can be much more challenging.

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Jeff Foust has more than a decade of experience writing about space policy, entrepreneurial ventures and regulatory affairs. In 2001, he established spacetoday.net to aggregate and summarize the day's space-related news stories. In 2003, he started The...