British Scientists Keep Up Hopes For Survival Of Mars Probe

Channelnewsasia.com ^ | 26 December 2003 | Agence France Presse

[justrepublican]

Beat me by this much.

[yooper]

"Despite the uncertainty surrounding the fate of Beagle 2, European Union officials were trumpeting the success of the overall mission. "The Mars Express project is a good illustration of what Europe can achieve, on this planet and beyond, if it works together," said the European Union's top research official, Philippe Busquin. "Even if not all parts of the mission have succeeded, we must still acknowledge its significance, and build upon the experience gained to ensure higher chances of succes in the future," he said in a statement from Brussels."

Insert the words "Panama Canal" for "Beagle 2" and "Mars Express", read a history of the Panama Canal, and you'll see that not much has changed over there in a hundred years, with regard to accomplishment.

"Yes, the project went to hell, but we must still acknowledge its significance."

I sincerely hope that this project can be salvaged, but it seems to me that too many opportunities for failure were engineered into the Beagle. The statistics came home to bite them in the ass. KIS, S.

[yooper]

Your post kinda argues for the existence of God, doesn't it? Or is it all a big coincidence? Take a statistics course, study probability, and think about what you posted. Also, I'm curious, does the book you read come to any conclusions about the alignment of the earth with respect to the sun, as it relates to the presence of life on earth?

[CasearianDaoist]

Are you suggesting that space exploration is a sport? You may be on to something here: The Euros think it is a sport! I think the ESA is a joke. There is only one of their missions that I find interesting and original, even if it is vaugely modelled after Hubble. That would be the Herschel-Planck mission. It actually seems to be after some real science. Even here they do not admit to the American contribution to the mission on the ESA page for it. They in fact make a big point about it being "all european" on the ESA web site. The Euros are starting to sound like the Soviets did in the Cold War. All the rest of their projects are just this childish "me to stuff," just like this Mars express orbiter. It looks like political elites think these things up, not scientist. THe kicker will be if Bush completely reorients Nasa's missions. Watch if the ESA does an about face too. Then we will see what the ESA is really about.

We should set out to embarass them for a couple of years just to keep them in line.

[Analyzing Inconsistencies]

KISS isn't applied at NASA either. The more difficult the mission is allowed to become, the more engineers are needed and the more powerful the bureaucrats and politicians ruling them (at taxpayers' expense) become. The way around this problem, I think, is to make NASA offer competitive prizes like DARPA's doing:

http://www.SpaceProjects.com/prizes

[Torie]

Ya, without liquid oceans, life is highly problematical. You see, without liquid oceans, you either don't have an atmosphere that can be held (eg Mars), or you get water evaporation, and then the hydrogen exits, and then you atmosphere is just a great big soup of CO2, and well, you know the rest of the story, you get global warming ala Venus! The rest had to occur for large mammals to make it. As to man, and the origin of Cromagnon man, nobody really knows. The gene data is a mess, and all those bones don't help much. Bryson has a separate chapter on that.

By the way, I am still a near Atheist. I am a stubborn cuss.

[CasearianDaoist]

Well it is really a little more pathological than that. They do missions that we have done but with new instruments. I do not see that the ESA's scientific or technical contributions have been all that meaningful, though as I said before I am behind the Herschel-Plank mission.

There is a comic contradiction here: They want to show us up but all they do is mimic us. They create for themselve a constant cycle of resentment and frustration.

[RightWhale]

They do that. Point taken.

[Torie]

By the way, one thing Bryson missed, is that you also need a giant planet like Jupiter in the neighborhood, to suck up 99.99% of those nasty asteroids. When every 300 million years or so a big one hits Earth, it is very bad for property values. Think what it would be like, if those puppies hit earth every 50 years or so. Granted we needed that one to hit back when, to take away Fred Flintstone's pet.

[Prodigal Son]

Are you suggesting that space exploration is a sport?

No, I was just pointing out that it had been done before. Why keep doing it?

We should set out to embarass them for a couple of years just to keep them in line.

Why should we want to embarrass the British? It makes no sense- if you don't mind me saying.

[CasearianDaoist]

This is not a British mission and the Brits are minor contributers to the ESA. The primary focus of this mission is the Orbiter, the lander was an afterthought and the EU almost did not let the Brits do it. The French and the Germans are the driving force behind the ESA, and the ESA's primary puprose is to poke its fingers in our eyes and to try to stem the EU's brian drain - and it uses the fruits of our labors and the taxpayer dollars to do it.

Perhaps it would "make more sense" if you bothered to study the science Programmes in the EU and their decidedly hostile attitude and insulting posture to the US, Programmes that by the way would not be possible without our support for the most part. I have seen incidents in the last few years that were so insulting to US scientist that issues had to be tossed up to the consular level.

The EU us the enemy.

[Prodigal Son]

Jesus. I was just pointing something out.

The Brits are a part of the EU. Going by what you're saying- they're the enemy?

Don't bother replying. I'm not that interested in the topic personally. I wish this mission had worked out better. Most Mars missions have not met with much success. If Mozambique wants to follow in our footsteps one day- more power to them.

[Frank_2001]

When humans finally get to Mars, they better pack some heat, just in case...;)