There appears to be an unofficial robotic space race underway involving the Red Planet. Both the U.S. and China are scripting strategies for bringing goodies back to Earth from Mars via their respective Mars Sample Return (MSR) endeavors.
For America, things are currently happening in real-time on Mars. NASA's Perseverance rover is busily wheeling about within the ins and outs of Jezero Crater, biting into and snatching primo chunks of Mars for eventual pick-up by a future MSR mission. But early on, for NASA, the space agency found itself caught between a Mars rock and a budgetary and timing hard place. The space agency's plans for MSR eventually rang a price tag upwards of $11 billion. Additionally, NASA estimated that samples of Mars dirt, rock, and atmosphere wouldn't be returned to Earth until 2040.
