1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

Reverse the cancellation of Mars Sample Return and give JPL a funded path to bring those samples home. NASA already has 33 sample tubes sitting on Mars in a rover that cost $2.4 billion to land there. One of them, the Sapphire Canyon sample, has been called the first potential biosignature ever found on another planet. Abandoning the return mission doesn't cut losses — it throws away the only chance to answer whether life ever existed beyond Earth. JPL and the US scientific community built this mission from the ground up, spending $2.4 billion on Perseverance and another $2.5 billion on sample return infrastructure. China's Tianwen-3 launches in 2028 and aims to return Martian samples by 2031. NASA Administrator Isaacman himself said retrieving these samples "can lead to the most significant scientific breakthrough in human history." Walking away now hands China that headline while the answer sits sealed in a tube on Mars. Fund the mission and let JPL finish what it started.