In article ,
says...

On Tuesday, November 22, 2016 at 1:26:32 PM UTC-5, David E. Powell wrote:
http://lunar.xprize.org/news/blog/we...acex-test-mars

http://lunar.xprize.org/news/blog/weekly-space-news-spacex-test-mars

The big unanswered question, for me, is how to get the rocket up off Mars again? Leaving the Moon to return to Earth was doable in 1969 because of the low Lunar gravity. While Mars' gravity is not as high as Earth's, it is a lot bigger than the gravitational pull of the Moon is.

elon is sending a proof of concept lander return capsule . the idea is to use a rover to collect some mars samples, the rover will put them in the earth return capsule, and they will come back

This is something proposed, but not for the first Red Dragon mission.
The first Red Dragon will just land and might have some rudimentary
science package inside. It's a proof of concept for landing on Mars
using only retro-propulsion. No sample return on that mission.

Jeff
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