What's the latest on Beagle2 ?

Take A out of Martian you get Mr Tin.

"Kevin Smith" wrote in message
...


I reckon those damn Martians have nicked it, like they nicked all the
others.

In fact take A out of Martian, and Earth could have already been seriously
invaded.

There are also an awful lot of Martins on earth?

Is this a conspiracy?

I think we should be told

Kevin

Come on Beagle - hear boy!

"David Langlois --- Ball serves Baal" -sex wrote in
message ...
This is beyond depressing.


David

"Yunus" wrote in message
...
:-(

"If I should crash think only this of me:

That there's some corner of a martian field

That is forever England."


British.

"Steve Taylor" wrote in message
.. .
Perhaps what is needed is LOTS of Beagle probes, scatterered on Mars
with the expectation that NEARLY all will fail. This seems to me the
problem with the "Faster cheaper better" idea. Accept a lower
relaibility but use your reduced costs and nearer mass production
techniques to make more probes with a higher chance of success.

Let's not forget too, that Beagle was really just the "icing on the cake" of
Mars Express. It's obviously regretable if it's been lost (especially for
the people who spent years of their lives working on it, obviously), but the
"real" mission here is Mars Express, and that's looking good! Landers grab
the headlines, but the mapping mission and the ground penetrating radar of
Mars Express are the main "science" reasons for going there.

It's worth bearing in mind, too, that although Beagle cost, what? £35m or
so? relatively little of that money has been "lost". The majority has been
spent on the development on new technologies which will be useful in the
future.

Let's just hope that the "bean counters" are sensible to realise that this
was _always_ a "high risk" mission, and give them a second chance when the
next opportunity arises.

Regards,

Chris

"Chris Marriott" wrote in message
...
It's worth bearing in mind, too, that although Beagle cost, what? £35m or
so? relatively little of that money has been "lost". The majority has been
spent on the development on new technologies which will be useful in the
future.

Let's just hope that the "bean counters" are sensible to realise that this
was _always_ a "high risk" mission, and give them a second chance when the
next opportunity arises.

Regards,

Chris

Damn right it's worth bearing in mind! )

£35m+ gets spent on tawdry, third rate filums these days.
I say we need less crappy straight to video movies and more Mars probes.
(*taps desk repeatedly with index finger* Goddamit)

People need to get their priorities straight.

Cheers,
Subz

"dylan" wrote in message
...
Take A out of Martian you get Mr Tin.

"Kevin Smith" wrote in message
...


I reckon those damn Martians have nicked it, like they nicked all the
others.

In fact take A out of Martian, and Earth could have already been
seriously
invaded.

There are also an awful lot of Martins on earth?

Is this a conspiracy?

I think we should be told

Kevin

Come on Beagle - hear boy!

"David Langlois --- Ball serves Baal" -sex wrote
in
message ...
This is beyond depressing.


David

I concur. I know a "Martin" and he's well dodgy. I shall observe...

Cheers,
Subz

Martin Rowley wrote:


Unfortunately, we are now going to get a lot of press/media sniping
etc., along the lines of wasted money, mis-managed project etc., etc.

You are right - there'll be no end of carping, but they DID turn in one
of the most highly integrated planetary explorers yet built. Given the
schedules they were allowed and the weights they could built to, Beagle
is one of the finest bits of space engineering yet launched.

Perhaps what is needed is LOTS of Beagle probes, scatterered on Mars
with the expectation that NEARLY all will fail. This seems to me the
problem with the "Faster cheaper better" idea. Accept a lower
relaibility but use your reduced costs and nearer mass production
techniques to make more probes with a higher chance of success.

Steve

in article , Martin Rowley
at wrote on 26/12/03 10:31:


... yes indeed: not only depressing for the lead scientists but for all
the contributors - so much promise but it needed a slice of luck I feel
for everything to click into place. The effectively uncontrolled (and
somewhat violent) landing strategy was a risk - but worth taking.

Depressing indeed, but as another poster has noted, it's not yet quite time
to write Beagle2's obituary. And even if the worst has come to the worst and
Beagle is lying shattered into pieces on the Martian surface, the project as
a whole is far from having been a total failure. At the very least, and no
doubt much to the chagrin of certain cynical anti-science elements in the
media, Beagle2 has inspired a good deal of public interest in science and
exploration. That interest can be sustained by Mars Express, which is now
set to begin returning a great deal of scientific data from the Red Planet.
And then there are the ongoing missions of Nasa's MGS and Odyssey and
hopefully in the coming month, Spirit and Opportunity. Moreover, in a little
over a year from now, attention will be focussed on a small probe descending
onto a world even more distant than Mars. Let's not forget that the Huygens
Titan lander contains a significant amount of British technology.


Marcus O'Neill

In message , Marcus O'Neill
writes
in article , Martin Rowley
at wrote on 26/12/03 10:31:


... yes indeed: not only depressing for the lead scientists but for all
the contributors - so much promise but it needed a slice of luck I feel
for everything to click into place. The effectively uncontrolled (and
somewhat violent) landing strategy was a risk - but worth taking.
Moreover, in a little
over a year from now, attention will be focussed on a small probe descending
onto a world even more distant than Mars. Let's not forget that the Huygens
Titan lander contains a significant amount of British technology.

I'll just add an "if all goes well" to that. But Titan does have a very
thick atmosphere, so if the heat shield holds up Huygens won't come
crashing down at some horrible terminal velocity.
--
Rabbit arithmetic - 1 plus 1 equals 10
Remove spam and invalid from address to reply.

I know this would cost, but perhaps look at providing (even) more
redundancy in future probes?

(I expect there was already redundancy in Beagle 2, but perhaps not enough.)

It's just SO easy for one little thing to go wrong, as any hardware or
software engineer will appreciate!

Maybe it wouldn't be necessary to duplicate things like the experimental
hardware (e.g. mass specs), but certainly comms hardware and main computers
and so on should heavily and independently redundant. Perhaps even
physically different CPUs running software designed by two independent teams,
too, might provide another layer of protection. Or 4 CPUs, 2 of one kind,
and 2 of the other.

As long as there are SEVERAL experiments on board, then at least some of
them should be able to turn in some results.

It would be a crying shame if almost everything was ok, but the whole thing
never got to work because of a damaged comms system or main computer.

As for the possibility that the whole lot was smashed to smithereens by a
rough landing, well, there's no answer to that except to do some more work on
the landing protection.

I wonder whether any future probe may be able to go to the vicinity of the
expected landing site for Beagle 2, and look for it, and possibly inspect
it, to judge its physical integrity, to at least find out whether it was
smashed up. Maybe it'd be covered in "balloon cloth" though, and hidden.



Martin
--
M.A.Poyser Tel.: 07967 110890
Manchester, U.K. http://www.fleetie.demon.co.uk

Chris Marriott wrote:

It's worth bearing in mind, too, that although Beagle cost, what? £35m or
so? relatively little of that money has been "lost". The majority has been
spent on the development on new technologies which will be useful in the
future.


That amazing mass-spec ?

Steve