Can we land on Mercury and pick up some rocks and stuff?

Question

Can we land on Mercury and pick up some rocks and stuff?

Answer 1

The high temperatures make it very difficult!

Answer 2

We could but it would be for a very short time. We would have to land on the night side because the day side gets up to 800 degrees and the night side gets down to -200 degrees. When we entered Venus that was 800 Degrees plus, the probe burned up. You wouldnt want to pick up the rocks for a while though because you might get burned from the previous daylight baking the rocks! Hope this helps.

Answer 3

We can.  It turns out to take alot of energy (so it's expensive) to get to Mercury.  The MESSENGER space craft is going into orbit, and has performed several gravity assists to do it.  There are currently no plans to do it.

Mercury has  a solid surface.

The heat from the Sun isn't as big a problem as you might think.  You can always hide behind your solar cell array.  And, if you're worried about how hot the ground is, you can always land at high latitudes (near the poles). You can pick any temperature you want.

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Don't listen to these people.  It can be done today with technology we've had for decades.  It isn't, in principal, harder than grabbing stuff from the Moon.  The Russians did that in the 70's.

Answer 4

We could.... and, we might - Mercury should be heavily populated with heavier elements.  We'd just land on the side facing away from the sun, and bring some heaters.  

Answer 5

There are no plans to do this yet. Keep in mind that none of our Mars probes to date are going to come back, with or without samples. It takes a lot more fuel and equipment to launch a planetary lander capable of taking off and returning to Earth. And because it's so close to the Sun, getting to and from Mercury is much harder than visiting Mars. Possibly some of the vehicles and equipment developed for the manned Mars mission (assuming there is one) will be adaptable to an unmanned round-trip mission to Mercury.

Answer 6

Sure, some day, when we have a more advanced capability in space.

Answer 7

Not with current technology. Aside of the higher radiation levels, which can be dealt with, the problem is getting there. For reaching mercury, you need almost the same amount of impulse (For spaceflight, this means a change in velocity) as for getting to Saturn. Thats why you can currently only send either very light probes directly or medium sized probes by using multiple gravity assists.