"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

If Beagle had performed as expected then NASA would have undergone a serious
grilling by some Congressional commitee, no doubt. So in that sense, it's
certainly a fortunate failure, for NASA.

I'm not at all convinced that you need a multi $100 million budget to
finance a Mars probe. I'm more interested what, if any, an investigation on
the Beagle 2 loss will bring up. I'm pretty sure it was a design fault,
somewhere. I sincerely hope ESA and the UK will fund another Beagle (which
is almost certain) and that it can carry out its mission succesfully. Maybe
Blair can ask Bush to let the guys at JPL take a look at the design and
point out any shortcomings.