In an earlier post several potential alternative MSR (Mars Sample Return) missions were proposed.
> Here is another - Analyze In Situ - Don't Return Samples.
This may sound counter intuitive on first hearing, yet the fastest and cheapest way to study the martian samples would be not to return them to earth - study them in situ.
Optimus robots are being sent on Starship to Mars. Add a laboratory to the ship and everything needed to study the samples will be on site.
It's easy to get distracted by the feeling that if we don't do it here, with our own hands and eyes, then it doesn't count, but we need to look beyond these feeling and focus on the results.
There is nothing a humanoid robot, with the right equipment, can't do on mars that we could do here.
What is more important - having the samples back on earth, or having them analyzed?
Let's start getting the Mars laboratory built and the robots trained now, ready to go in 2026.
