Not only did this once-secret plan not only not come to fruition,
resources and time were taken away from other Soviet deep space
missions which affected Venera 11 and 12 (no images taken of Venus'
surface as the lens covers failed to eject), delayed the launch of Luna
24, and kept Lunakhod 3 from ever leaving Earth.

Hopefully NASA/JPL won't be following in those footsteps. I agree we
should try sending a sophisticated robot lab to analyze various surface
areas in-situ. Actual surface sample returns came come with the first
manned Mars missions, if they will even be completely necessary by then.

I say the first manned Mars efforts should immediately start colonization.
They can set up labs to study the native rocks and send the results to
their colleagues on Earth.