Even the normally reasonable BBC has picked up the failure meme that seems to be spreading through the less reputable (AP and Reuters) space news sites.
Despite more than 30 missions launched to the Red Planet since the 1960s, only three landers have ever reached the Martian surface successfully.Never mind that many of the Mars missions weren't even designed to land on the Martian surface (that Global Surveryor or Odyssey didn't "reach the Martian surface" is a fine thing) this completely ignores the fact that we've had a pretty good record of success if you don't count the Russian/Soviet missions. It's also worth considering that the last half a dozen NASA Mars missions probably totaled less cost combined than the soon to be arriving at Saturn, Cassini mission. It seems totally reasonable to send lots of cheaper, smaller craft, knowing that you might lose a few, then to send just a couple of big ones. If Beagle 2 is lost, that'll be a shame, but it's not the end of the world and it was a relatively cheap mission (the US could have funded nearly 3000 Beagle 2s for the cost of its relatively short war in Iraq).
We're a couple of hours away from the opening of the next window of contact opportunity. I'll post again when there's new information.
If you haven't been keeping up with our planet's effort to get cozy with a few of the other planets, I posted briefly on the state of things back in January of this year.
Posted by asa at December 25, 2003 11:16 AM