[rsynnott]

> It's not beyond the realms of possibility that around the same time as the sample returns to Earth, the US could have geologists' boots on the ground on Mars doing actual geology in situ, courtesy of SpaceX/Starship.

I mean... maybe? What's your suggestion here? NASA and ESA should put all interplanetary work on hold, in case Musk delivers on time and on budget for once?

[growlist]

> I mean... maybe? What's your suggestion here? NASA and ESA should put all interplanetary work on hold, in case Musk delivers on time and on budget for once?

No. I'd prefer ESA to be building reusable rockets of their own, which offer the prospect of orders of magnitudes greater potential for exploration.

I just find it amusing to imagine the Earth-based geologists poring over their few crumbs whilst actual geologists stomp about on Mars with hammers chipping away to their hearts' content, likely also deploying fleets of rovers etc. and thereby gathering terabytes of data, and it could be the case that these two things are happening very close together in time. Surely you'd agree that's a poignant juxtaposition.

[rsynnott]

> No. I'd prefer ESA to be building reusable rockets of their own

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adeline_(rocket_stage)

The numbers didn't work particularly well on this one, but it's not like they're ignoring it.

And, frankly, commercial space is doing fine on launchers right now. It's doing very little on future interplanetary concepts, so if anything it would make MORE sense for ESA to focus on them now than previously.

> I just find it amusing to imagine the Earth-based geologists poring over their few crumbs whilst actual geologists stomp about on Mars with hammers chipping away to their hearts' content

I mean, it's _possible_, maybe. But it's not likely. And you can't suspend all work due to dubious claims by someone else. In the 1950s, British fusion researchers claimed that cheap fusion energy would be a thing within a decade. If we had believed them absolutely, the world would still be powered by low efficiency coal and oil power plants; why bother spending all that money developing high efficiency steam and gas turbines, wind and solar power, and fission power, when cheap fusion was about to sweep it away?

And of course, even in the Musk dream scenario where this actually happens, solar electric drive cargo tugs would still be very useful, and this is a decent first step towards those. No-one envisages a long-term purely chemical exploration of space.