Whose Flag Will Be on Mars First?

Imagine a news headline a few years from now, "Humanity has delivered samples from Mars

to Earth for the first time," and next to it, a flag. But here's the question:

whose flag will it be? Because right now, the US risks losing the race to the

red planet, and China could be the winner. And we're not talking about the distant

future. We're talking about the next six or seven years. At the center of

this story is the Mars sample return. Its goal is both simple and revolutionary: to bring samples

of Martian soil back to Earth. NASA has been preparing for this for decades, and the Perseverance

rover has already collected and hermetically sealed samples that may contain traces of ancient life.