This has already occurred naturally at least 277 times so all the named poll candidates have already been beaten.
Quote from: laszlo on 06/21/2022 11:01 pmThis has already occurred naturally at least 277 times so all the named poll candidates have already been beaten.Question starts with "Who" so AFAICS either you think the answer is God or you are wrong. But perhaps I am missing something?
But there will have to be preliminary works done in house already to design and implement a way to collect samples, and useful samples at that (which means additional scientific equipment to scout the landing site, if not some kind of rover or movable robots), plus mechanism for keeping the samples uncontaminated till back on Earth.
<snip>BTW for those voting Starship: we are only 6 years away from the 2028 launch window. IMHO it is certainly plausible for a Starship to fly towards Mars, or even land there on a robotic precursor mission (and that's pushing it, I'll have more confidence if Starship reaches Earth orbit twice within 2022). But there will have to be preliminary works done in house already to design and implement a way to collect samples, and useful samples at that (which means additional scientific equipment to scout the landing site, if not some kind of rover or movable robots), plus mechanism for keeping the samples uncontaminated till back on Earth.Unless of course people here thinks that Starship will carry people to Mars by 2028. That's perhaps too close to now to happen alas.This is not counting the difficulties of getting a Starship back on Earth by then.So I would like to ask why do you think Starship will get there to collect samples earliest.
There is no need to return the Starship back to Earth. A separate return vehicle could be mounted on the Starship to return a capsule back to Earth.The person building the Starship is running a full self driving development program for his electric car side business. Should be possible to use the technology from the FSD development and the electric car business to make some kind of semi-autonomous scout rover for Mars in multiples.Also the 2028 launch date is one window too pessimistic for a flock of Starships going to Mars, IMO. Of course not likely all the early Mars bound Starship will landed intact on Mars.
BTW for those voting Starship: we are only 6 years away from the 2028 launch window. IMHO it is certainly plausible for a Starship to fly towards Mars, or even land there on a robotic precursor mission (and that's pushing it, I'll have more confidence if Starship reaches Earth orbit twice within 2022). But there will have to be preliminary works done in house already to design and implement a way to collect samples, and useful samples at that (which means additional scientific equipment to scout the landing site, if not some kind of rover or movable robots), plus mechanism for keeping the samples uncontaminated till back on Earth.Unless of course people here thinks that Starship will carry people to Mars by 2028. That's perhaps too close to now to happen alas.This is not counting the difficulties of getting a Starship back on Earth by then.So I would like to ask why do you think Starship will get there to collect samples earliest.