>Possibly true except for (almost) certainty that the Moons did not come from Mars.<br /> <br />Deja vu! You replied the same thing in the other thread! If the two moons have been in orbit around Mars for any geological time, which they have, then they will have swept up Mars-ejected particles. Mars sees escape-velocity and ballistic-velocity (for debris) impacts fairly often. Even if the moons had only been in orbit for a 100,000 years, they would sweep up a scientifically useful amount of ejected Mars material. I'm saying that we can do "Mars sample return" without the trouble of landing on Mars. Phobos-Grunt's sample return only needs to bring back a pebble from Mars for this point to be true. It doesn't matter where the moons came from, what matters is how long they've been acting as garbage-collectors in Mars orbit. <br /><br />If the Martian moons have as much water as claimed, they have the potential to be the most prosperous industrial sites in the inner solar-system, eventually. Almost as easy to reach as Luna, much lower gravity, ready H2O and plenty of minerals. Daily access to low-latitude Martian sites and scheduled access to any Earth-Luna economy. Long-term, of course.<br /><br />Phobos-Grunt would be a great mission to advance knowledge of this moon. My critique of the probe as currently planned is that it doesn't seem to use ISRU and their seems to be minimal international involvement. That probe could be a lot more capable, for instance, if it could talk with MRO. I watched the video and read the net-translated page, but don't understand Russian so they might have addressed those issues. <br /><br />Josh<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>