No Mars signal from Beagle probe

BBC On Line ^ | Thursday, 25 December, 2003 | staff writer

[ROCKLOBSTER]

The electronics were made by LUCAS

An old Limey automotive joke:

Why do the Brits drink warm beer?
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Because they have Lucas refrigerators.

[ChefKeith]

Oh yes, I sold import auto parts for 14+ years and worked on Jag/Rolls for 10 or so.

You ever see the bumper sticker that had the picture of the MGB headlight switch?

Instead of OFF/PARK/LIGHTS it said OFF/DIM/FLICKER

[RightWhale]

Until this spacecraft the total failure rate for Mars spacecraft was 62%. Total complete failure, no results at all. The orbiter seems to be working, so this mission would reduce the failure rate to about 60% if the lander has failed.

[dano1]

All your probe belong to us.

[RightWhale]

just call me crazy

Quite a party. Why don't we just call you a cab home?

[HighWheeler]

"...failed to pick up an expected signal from British-built spacecraft Beagle 2..."

My brother had an MGB that had 9000 miles on the front tires and 18000 miles on the back tires. He would spend several days fixing the thing, then drive it out somewhere and have it towed back, dragged on the rear tires. The Brits do have trouble with conductive wire.

[ravinson]

Scientists have failed to pick up an expected signal from British-built spacecraft Beagle 2 telling them it has landed safely on Mars.

There's a simple explanation for the spacecraft's disappearance: Martians don't like invaders from outer space any more than we Earthlings do, and their CIA is also adept at covering up the evidence before the Martian Art Bell can get to it.

[abner]

It's there and working fine. We just can't get the signal because it is in the Martian equivalent of the National Air and Space Museum for alien space probes and aircraft from Earth. It's just like how you can't get a cell phone call in some Home Depot's here on Earth.

[Calvin Locke]

My brother ...would spend several days fixing the thing, ...The Brits do have trouble with conductive wire.

Apparently, so does your brother :-)

I recall an old article in a business mag about the founder of Jaguar, and his biggest mistake was not using German made
electrical components.

(OTOH, I had a VW GLI with power windows. The dang switches didn't last, and after the guarantee, they were something like $30 each.)

[rwfromkansas]

RIP Mrs. Lewis.

[RightWhale]

The picture of a Mars base reminds me of Prudhoe Bay. Hard to imagine the average union worker putting up with 2 years between R&R. Unless, of course, the contract calls for 7 16s the whole time, double time over 8 hours and over 40 a week, and triple time on holidays. They would even insist on Channukah and Kwanzaa being official holidays and back to back. Not many would want or need a second tour, unless they were of the habit of bringing out the deck of cards on payday.

[Vince Ferrer]

It wouldn't seem to make sense this long after the first moonshot that NASA would have trouble doing it again, but I suspect that they WOULD have trouble replicating the Apollo Shots--could be I'm just getting old and cynical.

To be sure I sometimes wonder where America got the nerve to MAKE the moonshot in the first place.

I credit both the inspiration for the space program, and our subsequent lack of ability, on the science fiction of the time. Up till the moment when we landed on the moon, science fiction was our only guide as to what was up there. But when we got there, and realized that space is not populated by beautiful women in tight aluminum foil outfits, our interest dropped off dramatically.

[camas]

so true. right on the money

[Calvin Locke]

From the Beagle 2 homepage:

Current status

26-Dec-2003
00:25 GMT (That's 7:25PM EST)

A search for a Beagle 2 radio signal was carried out this
evening without success

[Political Junkie Too]

Note to scientists:

metric ->		imperial
1 millimetre [mm]		0.03937 in
1 centimetre [cm]	10 mm	0.3937 in
1 metre [m]	100 cm	1.0936 yd
1 kilometre [km]	1000 m	0.6214 mile

-PJ

[PoorMuttly]

The sailors on Darwin's ship Beagle called it "a floating coffin."

Carrying on the tradition.

[FreedomCalls]

Not many would want or need a second tour

There should be no "tours". It should all be one-way trips. That's the way we settled America and later the frontier. There's no reason to return. Either it will be a colony or a waste of money.

[Wondervixen]

I think their problem is that they tried to send in the Beagle down first...I would have dropped a couple of Rotweilers to police the grounds of hostile aliens before sending in the sniffers!

[pending]

Bummer for the Brits. Did they use French Parts?

---

I once heard Nixon gave the go ahead to the shuttle after being told it could be used to go heist/smack Soviet satellites.
____________________________
I would like to see a next gen shuttle get done. good jobs, good mission, high tech leadership, old school NASA attitude preferred?
If the mars/moon probe is launched from space....
Like runnin downhill.

[Lancey Howard]

Why couldn't the lander have landed on the side of a hill and rolled over? I mean, the surface is not completely flat. Heck, maybe it landed on the flag that the astronauts left there.