The April/05/2004 space article in Spacedaily.com
carried a story on the Europe's plans for a Mars Sample Return
mission.
The ESDA [a branch of the ESA] has studied such a robotic Mars mission and has concluded...that such a mission should be undertaken to recover a few grams of Mars dust.

Aha????......

Spend a few billion Euros to recover a "few grams" of Mars dust?
Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, I don't think that proposal is money
well spent.

If ESA, or NASA, plan to send robots to recover samples of Mars
they better recover MORE than a "few grams" of Mars dust.

MY SUGGESTION:
The MSR mission should involve a landing at Meridiani [where else?] Planum
and there drill out a core-sample of a least one-meter [over 39 inches]
so that the core-sample should include a portion of that salty bedrock and those hematite spherules, in that area of Mars, discovered by the MER rover Opportunity.

Jacob

"We choose to go to the moon, and do those OTHER THINGS, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
John F. Kennedy