"Paul Blay" wrote in message
...
"The Plankmeister" wrote ...

"Alex R. Blackwell" wrote in message
...
Beagle 2: A Fortunate Failure
by Jeffrey F. Bell
Honolulu - January 13, 2004
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/beagle2-04a.html

And that guy is supposed to be a professor? Of what? Americanism? He may
as
well have just said "Only America knows how to do anything with
technology... All you other countries just go back to building mud
huts."
What a sarcastic ass.

Well we all know that a mission that fails that 1/4 the cost of a mission
that succeeds
is bad. But is a mission with a 50% chance of success at 1/4 the cost of
a mission
that succeeds bad?

So the coin flipped the wrong way this time - but I wonder just how low
can you
push a spacecraft's reliability and excuse it on the basis that it's real
cheap.

Yeah I totally agree that it is possible to make a mission suffer through a
tight budget, but I think the way the guy expressed his opinions was just
wrong. I think the Beagle 2 mission was a very big disappointment, but
game-on to them for actually getting the mission off the ground in the first
place. Not many people can say they've realised their ideas into an actual
mission to another planet... I think what Colin Pillinger showed is that
it's not just NASA that can get missions off the ground... Anyone with
enough enthusiasm (which Colin Pillinger has in abundance) can get a mission
off the ground... And I think that is important.

I think the idea of 'cheaper, faster, better' missions is still in its
infancy. I think it's inevitable that there will be more 'cheaper, faster,
better' missions in the future... Technology advances, ideas mature,
complicated manufacturing processes become cheaper... I think Beagle 2 was a
bit of a trail blazer in this respect. People will realize that it IS
possible to get a mission off the ground fairly cheaply and more people will
give input to such projects which inevitably leads to more reliability and a
better chance of success.

So I say: Well done Beagle 2 team for showing the world that spaceflight
isn't just for $multi-billion backed organisations.

Plankmeister.