I think you may have missed my point. Human labor of 10 workers costing $ 1+ million USD in total OpEx isn't as scalable as sending out 10,000 drones to collect

I think you may have missed my point. Human labor of 10 workers costing $ 1+ million USD in total OpEx isn't as scalable as sending out 10,000 drones to collect samples. Drones that can return in 45 minutes, don't need lunch breaks, and don't have to find parking. Industrial-scale sample processing -> putting more people a little farther down the pipeline to actually look at what's interesting rather than doing unnecessary/low-skill field work.