Beagle 2: A Fortunate Failure

Beagle 2: A Fortunate Failure
by Jeffrey F. Bell
Honolulu - January 13, 2004
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/beagle2-04a.html

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Alex R. Blackwell
University of Hawaii

"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

--


Alex R. Blackwell
University of Hawaii


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.

"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.

"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.

The Plankmeister wrote:

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.


It seems we have here a tale of two Meterorite/Asteroid scientists.

Essentially, one decided one day he wanted to send a spacecraft to
Mars AND DID IT.

The other sat in his office and wrote a ****ey article that, had it been
posted here, would have been considered trolling and got the author
killfiled.

Ladies and Gentlemen, who do you think deserves more respect?

--
================================================= =============
Michael Morton | Need a job!
School of Information | (pretty please)
Systems, University | http://www.sys.uea.ac.uk/~mtm/work
of East Anglia, Norwich |
================================================= =============

"The Plankmeister" wrote in message
. ..

"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.
....

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.

And the fact that he put it in a gratuitous scoff at the authorship of
Shakespeare (the literary history equivalent of a UFO cult) doesn't do
anything to burnish his credibility...

"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.

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 12:25:06 -1000, "Alex R. Blackwell"
wrote, in part:

Beagle 2: A Fortunate Failure
by Jeffrey F. Bell
Honolulu - January 13, 2004
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/beagle2-04a.html

Fortunately, the article is totally satirical.

But I'm wondering if there won't be people concluding that Beagle 2
failed, and Spirit succeeded, because George Bush is a God-fearing
President, and Beagle 2 was named after the ship that carried *Charles
Darwin* to Galapagos and other places where he came up with his theory
of (gasp) Evolution!

Yes, the failure of Beagle 2 proves the existence of God!

Now *that* is an unfortunate aspect of the failure of Beagle 2.

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html

"Carey Sublette" wrote in
news
And the fact that he put it in a gratuitous scoff at the authorship of
Shakespeare (the literary history equivalent of a UFO cult) doesn't do
anything to burnish his credibility...

I share John Savard's suspicion that the whole article was intended to be
deadpan satire, with the Shakespeare scoff thrown in as a tip-off.


--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

In article ,
lid says...
On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 12:25:06 -1000, "Alex R. Blackwell"
wrote, in part:

Beagle 2: A Fortunate Failure
by Jeffrey F. Bell
Honolulu - January 13, 2004
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/beagle2-04a.html

Fortunately, the article is totally satirical.

But I'm wondering if there won't be people concluding that Beagle 2
failed, and Spirit succeeded, because George Bush is a God-fearing
President, and Beagle 2 was named after the ship that carried *Charles
Darwin* to Galapagos and other places where he came up with his theory
of (gasp) Evolution!

Yes, the failure of Beagle 2 proves the existence of God!

Now *that* is an unfortunate aspect of the failure of Beagle 2.

So you're saying that this is also the reasons that the
godless commies never had a successful mission to the RED
planet?

Was there someone on the MPL project who, perhaps, had
doubts about the existence of divine beings?

You're saying that in fact, God is actually the Great Martian
Ghoul?

Diane, stunned