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Beagle 2: Mars Landing On A Shoestring

Posted by timothy on from the there's-dirt-on-your-shoestring dept.

dr3vil writes "A great article in The Guardian about the development of Beagle 2, the Mars lander due to start the search for life on Mars on Christmas day. Some great stories about the struggle for funding, and technical details about using a coat handler antenna and a dentist's tool for grinding rock samples. Obviously this was a great project for the hackers."

4 of 24 comments (clear)

  1. Begun on a Beer Mat by ajax0187 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Amazing work. Just goes to show that we can still do scientific work on a budget. NASA should take a long, hard look at this project. If they used this approach, we could get next-gen space transports for a hell of a lot cheaper than what we're predicting now.

    --
    "By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth." - George Carlin
  2. Shoestring is the right word by Wanderer2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    25 million quid is not a lot in astronomical terms. Plus the ESA have had to cancel / downgrade a couple of other missions due to lack of funds / problems with the upgraded Ariane 5.

    Fingers crossed Beagle lands safely... Colin (the guy wrote the book the article's lifted from) always seems so enthusiastic when he's on TV - it'd be a shame to see him disappointed.

    When are the other probes due to land?

    --
    I say we take-off and slashdot the site from orbit... it's the only way to be sure
  3. Microscope? by Euphonious+Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Why does nobody who is looking for life on Mars ever seem to consider putting a microscope on board? If you were wondering whether something was growing in your hummus, you would start by sniffing it, but if 25M UKP was riding on the answer, wouldn't you look at it under a microscope?

    They already have a steerable camera on board, so all they needed else was a pair of lenses at the ends of a tube, and a flash. That would have fit within the 100g they had left in their mass budget.

    Next time, I guess.

  4. Gaia by Latent+Heat · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I agree that it is hard to see stuff with a microscope just sifting through stuff. Apparently there are ecological niches on Earth that have very low density of organisms (i.e. a glass of "pure" water, and some of the stuff discovered is hard to culture).

    But one would think that if there is life (on the surface) that it would have left its imprint on the environment, and there is little evidence at that. The only hope is if stuff is living underground.