Construction Begins on Beagle 2

Bonker writes "CNN reports that Beagle 2, a lander that's part of ESA's next Mars mission, is beginning construction in England. The lander will be constructed in clean-room conditions to avoid being contaminated with any kind of terrestrial life so that it can more accurately determine if there is or was any kind of martian life once it arrives."

Comments

Its hard to know what to say.

[palfreman]

Normally I laugh at NASA doing this kind of thing - partly because it's over in America and it isn't my money being shot into space. But seeing the European Space Agency is planning a Mars trip - just as you or I may plan a booze-cruise to Calais - just makes me feel extremely distant from the whole EU/United Europe nonsense.

You may think this is a troll - I suppose it is a little bit - but surely you must be able to see the absurdity in this. All along some Europeans - particularly the French, although there is much to admire about them themselves - have felt a profound jellously about America and in his case, the American Space program. A sensible approach would be to let the Americans spend the money, then when it becomes commercial feasible people in Europe will start running commercial services up their anyway: after all the Russians already are, if only into near orbit.

But no, the EU has to have its own space programme, even though it could never keep up with either the Russians or the Americans. I don't so much mind having to pay for it pointlessly - there are plenty of other things I get taxed for pointlessly. It's the pseudo-prestige they get from it, as though somehow they're playing with the big boys now.