WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: John Grunsfeld has a plan that uses Red Dragon to return Mars rocks to Earth.

Grunsfeld’s idea goes like this: Instead of sending the high-power SEP spacecraft to an asteroid, reconfigure it by adding a communications satellite, an imager, and ground-penetrating radar. The SEP spacecraft could then go to Mars and provide all of the power the radar needs to map the entire planet’s water sources over the course of a Martian year. With the radar’s work done, the SEP spacecraft could then undock, leaving NASA with a brand new communications and imaging satellite.

Meanwhile, in 2024, another spacecraft could launch to Mars—perhaps one of SpaceX’s Red Dragons, Grunsfeld said—carrying a small rover and a Mars ascent vehicle. This rover would have the primary purpose of collecting Martian rock samples cached by the Mars 2020 rover and then returning to the ascent vehicle. After launching back to Mars orbit, the ascent vehicle would dock with the SEP spacecraft and return to Earth.

Consider the potential achievements of this two-mission strategy. By 2025 NASA would have a new, high-bandwidth communications and imaging satellite in orbit around Mars; found all the water humans would need there; demonstrated solar electric propulsion; proved the capability of conducting a roundtrip flight to Mars before sending humans and; finally, have conducted a Mars sample return mission, the highest priority of the planetary science community.

Until there’s a permanent Martian colony big and advanced enough to launch satellites indigenously, they’ll all have to originate from Earth.