Tesla’s Cybertruck may look ungainly on Earth, but a pressurized version of the vehicle might be just the thing for gathering up samples of Martian rock and soil for return to Earth. That’s one of the way-out concepts that was discussed in Seattle during the past week’s convention of the Mars Society, a nonprofit advocacy group.
Robotically controlled Cybertrucks could be part of a Mars exploration system that also includes SpaceX’s Starship super-rocket as well as spaceworthy versions of all-terrain vehicles and humanoid robots built by Tesla, according to mission plans suggested by Mars Society co-founder Robert Zubrin, retired NASA engineer Tony Muscatello and business analyst Kent Nebergall.
Zubrin said the Starship-based concept could even accelerate progress toward crewed missions to Mars.
“We use Starship to deliver a robotic expedition that has already examined thousands of samples on Mars, gathered from hundreds of kilometers away by helicopters, and tens of kilometers away gathered by rovers, and then we land the crew to do follow-up exploration, including drilling in well-characterized sites to bring up water and see what the life on Mars is,” he said during an Aug. 8 session.
How way out is that? It sounds like science fiction, but theoretically, at least some elements of the plan could show up in SpaceX’s proposal for reworking NASA’s Mars sample return strategy.
