# What's the farthest we've sent something to space and had it successfully returned? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 28, 2015, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-weve-sent-something-to-space-and-had-it-successfully-returned/711132 "2015-01-28T18:36:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2015, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-weve-sent-something-to-space-and-had-it-successfully-returned/711132/1 "2015-01-28T18:36:13Z")
Having a hard time finding this on Google. For the most part, space is usually a one way trip. We’ve sent people to the moon and back, but is there anything that we’ve sent farther and actually recovered? ---
**Author:** ![Whiskey\_Dickens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/9fc348/32.png) [@Whiskey\_Dickens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whiskey_Dickens)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2015, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-weve-sent-something-to-space-and-had-it-successfully-returned/711132/2 "2015-01-28T18:48:34Z")
I would like to suggest that the Apollo 13 crew and capsule were the furthest returned items. They reached a distance of 400,171 km from earth. [Per wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight_records#Farthest_humans_from_Earth) Anybody able to top that? Maybe with something unmanned? ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2015, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-weve-sent-something-to-space-and-had-it-successfully-returned/711132/3 "2015-01-28T18:54:20Z")
The Stardust sample return saw the mission fly out to a comet, trap particles and send the particle trap back to earth. ---
**Author:** ![AndrewL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@AndrewL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AndrewL)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2015, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-weve-sent-something-to-space-and-had-it-successfully-returned/711132/4 "2015-01-28T20:13:18Z")
The Hayabusa mission also went to an asteroid and returned a sample container with particles from it to Earth. I don’t know if that was further than the Stardust mission. ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2015, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-weve-sent-something-to-space-and-had-it-successfully-returned/711132/5 "2015-01-28T20:34:11Z")
Yes, probably Hayabusa or Stardust. The other one to beat out the Apollo missions is the [Genesis mission](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_(spacecraft)), which went to the Earth-Sun L1 point to collect the solar wind (about 1.5 million km away, or about four times the distance to the Moon.) It’s also notable for a totally ballsy attempt to snag the capsule with a helicopter as it fell from space, but unfortunately that didn’t work out due to a parachute malfunction. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-weve-sent-something-to-space-and-had-it-successfully-returned/711132/6 "2015-01-29T04:34:59Z")
There is a followup mission to Hayabusa called (imaginatively) [Hayabusa 2](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayabusa_2). It was launched in December. It’s going to (162173) 1999 JU3, a near-Earth asteroid that doesn’t have a real name yet. In fact, it’s [wiki page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(162173)_1999_JU3) is rather bereft of lots of information you’d expect to be there. Orbital parameters, for example. Hayabusa 2 is going to “shoot” the asteroid with an explosive penetrator. But it’s chicken, so it’s going to hide on the other side of the asteroid when the explosion happens. It’ll leave behind a small camera to watch the explosion. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-weve-sent-something-to-space-and-had-it-successfully-returned/711132/7 "2015-01-29T14:17:57Z")
> [@](#): > > There is a followup mission to Hayabusa called (imaginatively) Hayabusa 2. It’s the Japanese custom to not give a space probe its proper name until it’s demonstrated that it’s working, which generally means starting to return mission data. Until then, it’s just given a placeholder name. Hence, for instance, Yohkoh was originally called “Solar-A”, and its successor Hinode was originally “Solar-B”. ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-weve-sent-something-to-space-and-had-it-successfully-returned/711132/8 "2015-01-29T15:05:34Z")
I went and looked up the distances of the satellites and their target bodies on [JPL’s HORIZONS](http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/?horizons) system. Here are the results: [ul][_]Stardust: when Stardust collected samples from Comet 81P/Wild on January 2, 2004, the comet was about 2.6 AU from Earth. The spacecraft’s farthest distance from Earth was about 3.6 AU, in early January 2002.[_]Hayabusa was 1.9 AU from Earth when it collected samples from the asteroid 25143 Itokawa. The spacecraft’s full trajectory information isn’t available through HORIZONS, unfortunately, but the farthest distance from Earth listed in the information that is available is 2.4 AU.[/ul]Given the above, I suspect that Stardust is the champion, but given the vagaries of celestial mechanics I don’t think we can say for sure. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-weve-sent-something-to-space-and-had-it-successfully-returned/711132/9 "2015-01-29T15:47:18Z")
Have we ever got anything back from Mars or Venus? ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-weve-sent-something-to-space-and-had-it-successfully-returned/711132/10 "2015-01-29T15:48:54Z")
Nope. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-weve-sent-something-to-space-and-had-it-successfully-returned/711132/11 "2015-01-29T17:27:38Z")
A sample return from either Mars or Venus would be very hard. It’s a lot easier to launch from Mars than it is from Earth, between the lower gravity and the thinner atmosphere… but it’s really damned hard to launch from Earth, and still fairly hard to launch from Mars. Then add in that, everything you need for a launch from Mars, you need to pack that all in your payload you’re launching from Earth. None of this is insurmountable, and there’s always a Mars sample return mission at some stage or another of the planning process, but it’s well beyond anything we’ve done so far. As for Venus, you’ve got all the same difficulties, except nearly as much gravity as Earth and a much thicker atmosphere, plus everything’s got to be able to tolerate the heat and corrosiveness. Fuhgettaboutit. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-weve-sent-something-to-space-and-had-it-successfully-returned/711132/12 "2015-01-29T17:34:43Z")
> [@Grey](#): > > Nope. This has me wondering about something: the way I see it, a mission to Mars to bring back soil samples could basically pay for itself. Say the craft brings back (spitballing here) 100kg. 10kg are given to research, the other 90kg are sold off, at thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars per gram. Profit! Is this sort of thing illegal or considered immoral or untoward in the space-exploration community? Elon Musk needs to get on this. ---
**Author:** ![AndrewL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@AndrewL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AndrewL)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-weve-sent-something-to-space-and-had-it-successfully-returned/711132/13 "2015-01-29T17:35:20Z")
The Russian mission Phobos-Grunt was supposed to return a sample from Mars’s moon Phobos. Unfortunately, it never made it out of earth orbit. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-weve-sent-something-to-space-and-had-it-successfully-returned/711132/14 "2015-01-29T18:04:16Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > This has me wondering about something: the way I see it, a mission to Mars to bring back soil samples could basically pay for itself. Say the craft brings back (spitballing here) 100kg. 10kg are given to research, the other 90kg are sold off, at thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars per gram. Profit! > > Is this sort of thing illegal or considered immoral or untoward in the space-exploration community? > > Elon Musk needs to get on this. Musk is lucky he doesn’t have to put up congress and can fail. NASA really isn’t allowed to. Now consider Mars Pathfinder. Using a Delta III we put a 264kg lander and 10 kg rover onto Mars. To get that back to Earth let us just assume we need the equivalent to a Minotaur I which could put ~600 kg into LEO. I’m going to assume that from the surface of Mars that’s going to be enough to push the return the 274 kg we referenced earlier. The Minotaur I masses at 36,200 kg. So now we have to get 36,474 kg to the surface of Mars instead of 274 and not have it jostled so much it either breaks or blows up. That means we’re looking at a massive rocket delivery system that doesn’t currently exist. Say it takes $10 billion to design, build, launch and then send the sample return to mars. A single gram returned sample would have to come in a $100,000. There are proposals for leveraging the Martian atmosphere to produce the return fuel which would do great things to the amount of mass sent to Mars but still it’s never been done. ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-weve-sent-something-to-space-and-had-it-successfully-returned/711132/15 "2015-01-29T18:45:36Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Have we ever got anything back from Mars or Venus? Not by our own volition, but there are over 100 [meteorites known to have been originally from Mars.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_meteorite) We also have [one that is suspected to be from Mercury](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Africa_7325). None are known to be from Venus, and the same factors that work against a sample-return mission from Venus (as mentioned by **Chronos** above) also work against a meteorite being blasted into space from the Venusian surface and making its way to Earth. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-weve-sent-something-to-space-and-had-it-successfully-returned/711132/16 "2015-01-29T19:11:54Z")
Pretty sure I saw a documentary once about the recovery of Voyager 6. That one went quite along way away indeed. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-weve-sent-something-to-space-and-had-it-successfully-returned/711132/17 "2015-01-30T00:57:02Z")
> [@MikeS](#): > > Hayabusa was 1.9 AU from Earth when it collected samples from the asteroid 25143 Itokawa. . Pretty sure this is the answer to the OP’s question, though can’t find exact number this site give the [total distance traveled](http://www.fujitsu.com/global/solutions/business-technology/tc/fields/space/hayabusa/) at 9 billion km (60 AU). It also had all the makings of the awesome scifi/zombie movie: - It landed on a asteroid and collected samples - its ion thrusters failed and it lost contact with Earth, - contact was regained years later - it returned to Earth with the samples - the samples were returned to Earth when it landed in the “Prohibited Area” in Australia (Prohibited due nuclear fallout from British nuclear testing) Incidentally it does I believe hold the record for the fastest man made object when it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere. ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-weve-sent-something-to-space-and-had-it-successfully-returned/711132/18 "2015-01-30T01:12:55Z")
> [@Grey](#): > > Musk is lucky he doesn’t have to put up congress and can fail. NASA really isn’t allowed to. > > Now consider Mars Pathfinder. Using a Delta III we put a 264kg lander and 10 kg rover onto Mars. To get that back to Earth let us just assume we need the equivalent to a Minotaur I which could put ~600 kg into LEO. I’m going to assume that from the surface of Mars that’s going to be enough to push the return the 274 kg we referenced earlier. > > The Minotaur I masses at 36,200 kg. > > So now we have to get 36,474 kg to the surface of Mars instead of 274 and not have it jostled so much it either breaks or blows up. That means we’re looking at a massive rocket delivery system that doesn’t currently exist. Say it takes $10 billion to design, build, launch and then send the sample return to mars. A single gram returned sample would have to come in a $100,000. > > There are proposals for leveraging the Martian atmosphere to produce the return fuel which would do great things to the amount of mass sent to Mars but still it’s never been done. [This thread](http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/2015/what-is-the-current-cost-per-kg-to-send-something-into-gso-geo)comes up with an approximate cost of US$50,000 per kg to launch things to Geostationary orbit. So $1.8 billion just to get your total mass of your Mars Launcher just to there. Maybe triple that for fuel to get to Mars (and slow down for reentry as well?), leaving about $4.5 billion to design and build the whole lot. So your estimate might be in the right ballpark I guess. Having said that flooding the market in Mars dust sounds like a good way to drop the price.