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Beagle II Successfully Separates
Control42 writes "After the long journey out, it seems that little Beagle II, the lander of the Mars express mission has successfully separated. If all goes well, the lander should touch down on Christmas Day. Seems that NASA has actually lost the edge in robotic space exploration." Reader chalker writes "In order to build public interest in the Mars Exploration Rovers 2004 missions landing in January, NASA has released a series of movie trailers (Flash enabled page, Windows Media and Quicktime formats) for what they are calling "M2K4". They contain quite amazing animations of the landings, as well as a professional artistic style typically seen in action movie trailers.
Additional videos on the launch, cruise, and landing challenges can be found at the JPL based mission site."
it is robotics, that is all. NASA was just the first to send one out, there was no special technology.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
I, for one, welcome our new British overlords.
Haha, I just finished watching those trailers. Quite catchy. I suggest everyone watch them at least once. They remind me of a LOTR movie!
Of course, the ESA has the immense advantage over NASA that everyone uses SI units, rather than a mixture of metric and imperial ;-)
Still, its a long way down for Beagle 2 - hope it succeeds.
Don't go to a brothel if you want to buy broth
Only 5 generations 'til we get to the R2 series!
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It's probably too much to hope that we'll learn as much from the voyage of Beagle 2 as from that of Beagle 1, but that is my hope that goes with it.
More realistically,just some good data that further constrains any theories about Martian life.
Helium balloons want to be free.
See the Mars robot scrape up soil samples. Watch it analyse the atmosphere. Be awed by the movement over harsh landscape.
Welcome to Mars!
-Certified TechnoWeinie
Uhh, NASA has already been to Mars, multiple times.
for those of us that dosen't like to view the movies in our browsers. http://anon.nasa-global.speedera.net/anon.nasa-glo bal/M2K4/God_high.mov
http://anon.nasa-global.speedera.net/anon.nasa-glo bal/M2K4/water_high.mov
http://anon.nasa-global.speedera.net/anon.nasa-glo bal/M2K4/Sixminutes_high.mov
So Esa has one probe and Nasa has two. Therefore Nasa is behind?
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Why do you still have to think in terms of "losing edges"? The Mars Express mission will cooperate with NASA's "Mars Odyssey" to relay data back to earth. Competition is good, cooperation is better.
Once, I had to get two beagles to seperate by spraying them with a garden hose.
If the movie is anything like the trailer, this is gonna be the most anticipated movie event ever!
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
is it childish of me to giggle at how many Americans must be mystified by the great football (as in soccer) analogy?
what would happen ? would there be a sudden roar of disbelief or would there be a "god created life there too" statement made, of course we havent decided what consitutes life yet (from our tiny perspective), can silicon or alternativ chemicals have life ? is life just a product of complexity or can simple systems have it too ? does it have to be carbon based ?
How is this so? Why are the US projects so much more expensive?
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
NASA hasn't lost its edge, it just has a different focus.
clifgriffin > blog
Anybody else read that and get kind of disappointed? I mean...I guess it would make it slightly more interesting, but EVERYBODY these days is turning things into action movie trailers. Hell, the whole "War on Terror" on the news seemed like a bunch of teasers and trailers for a big upcoming blockbuster (no pun intended).
I know they're trying to reach a broader audience, and I know they have to compete with Hollywood, but if they need to sink to the level of an action movie trailer to make science interesting then I think we are in trouble.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
That a government agency needs marketing and promotional materials? Maybe the x-prize or the Chinese advancements will finally get people back into the 'space' mindset again. We've kind of lost the forward thinking momentum of the first shuttle and moon mission launches where EVERYTHING in America stopped to watch it happen.
Imagination is the silver lining of Intelligence.
British-made spacecraft? Damn, that's gonna be impossible to find parts for.
the no
I'm a practicing agnostic, but I know several quite religious people who also believe in life elsewhere in the Universe. It's not that big of a deal, really. The question tends to be raised by those with a stereotypical view of "religious people". Always try to remember that in our society the most vocal and visible members of any group are the Gaussian tail types.
--- Ban humanity.
Did anybody else spot the spelling mistake on the M2K4 page (alt text for six minutes). The attention to detail makes you wonder...
Too bad... I was hoping for MST2k4
All Your Memory Are Belong To Java
M2K4, soon to be shown on MST3K.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
On the plus side, everyone will speak really really good English, even the Martian prostitutes.
--- Ban humanity.
Here's the Mars Express Webcast. They talk about the training missions they went through and some of the science they'll be doing while they get telemetry in about how the separation was going.
And the post doesn't make clear that this is all EESA, the Beagle has nothing to do with NASA or its probes.
You're making fun of the HST, aren't you? :-P
PR
The US probes are fancy and will make good press as the roll about, but in terms of actual science, the Beagle probe is way ahead.
An infinite number of monkeys will eventually come up with the complete works of
"After the long journey out, it seems that little Beagle II, the lander of the Mars express mission has successfully separated. If all goes well, the lander should touch down on Christmas Day."
Awwww, how cute, we gave Mars an Aibo for Christmas...
I've just seen the first picture taken by Mars Express of Beagle 2 just after it separated.
I think this is the first time a spacecraft has taken a picture of another outside of earth orbit (ie the only previous ones are manned missions in either Earth or Lunar orbit).
Java gaming nut - http://www.retep.org/ or for the rail http://uktra.in/
Then please explain to me where the edge is. What is the basis for the comment in the blurb? Nasa alreadly has 2 orbiters at mars, Last touched down 9 years ago, has sent probes to every planet and the sun, and The Esa has sent one to mars ( and also one to the sun If I remeber correctly).
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
A story about an ESA mission contains 2 sentences about the mission and 4 sentences about NASA. Go figure.
The lack of cooperation comes solely from the self-centered Americans who don't want to "lose their edge".
Here is a link to the seperation picture of Beagle 2 taken by Mars Express
Beagle 2 wasn't funded by ESA either, they just piggybacked for the trip.
There was a lot of publicity by the Beagle 2 team over the last few years to get the funding. The UK government only put in (I think) 2 million after they had the promise of other institutions would pay up (and I'm not sure they have got the money back yet).
The mission is almost entirely privately paid for.
The only link with NASA is that they will be relaying the first signal to see if it landed ok, and ESA agreed to allow Express to be used as a relay for NASA's rovers.
Java gaming nut - http://www.retep.org/ or for the rail http://uktra.in/
There are many different types of religions in the world. Each has its own point-of-view, with its own goal, ranging from crowd-control to theorizing about life. Sounds like you're trying to lump all religions together. You're making yourself a great disservice, keeping yourself in ignorance.
Lots of British hold lovingly to their pounds, gallons and miles per hour.
Even the documentation I saw used non-SI units, so the possibility of a screw up still exists.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Not Beagles
A good resource if you had no clue what was going on, like me.
...none of the ESA's member nations use Imperial measurements for much of anything other than selling beer anymore, so there's no conversions for them to screw up.
...that without NASA innovation, the Beagle wouldn't exist, much less be a couple of million miles away from planet earth.
clifgriffin > blog
... you tend to waste it.
NASA as a weak budget but it was used to very big fundings during the cold war.
In Europ space has never been a top priority and fundings have always been really limited. When you have less you try to optimize everything and you tend to do better for cheaper.
Look at the Pathfinder mission with Sojourner. It was a Nasa mission but a mission without a very big funding. It was a tremendous success.
Iraq: war to save the U
If you have to pick just one, I suggest the "Sixminutes" file.
Someone is in need of some history lessons...
The two NASA probes have rovers.
Remember: only 1/3 of Mars missions are successful. Does the failure of the Japanese mission (out of power) count in the failure list?
Seems to me that we should wait for the probe to actually land, power up, and communicate before we judge how far the EU has caught up.
With some of the coming propulsion breakthroughs, these missions are just scratching the surface (so to speak;) anyhow.
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
I'm so pleased that you are well versed on the real preferences of Martians :-D
They break their marriage to check out cool new worlds.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
The British realised from the start that they had very little money and as a result have developed the lander equivalent of the mini; a basic vehicle that will get the job done. It seems a lot of improvisation has been used to develop and test Beagle 2. Even the testing seems to have been sponsored photo opportunities.
The NASA approach is a Rolls-Royce solution by comparison; whilst they have a budget, I'm willing to bet it has more zeroes on the end. In addition the landers are mobile, and that will always add another level of complexity to the lander.
The only problem I can see with beagle is that it is going to be at the same spot each time; it is definitely not going to be an interesting ever changing webcam view! Whilst Beagle probably packs more science on board, the US missions with their capability to go anywhere have better long term attractiveness
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
A Google search will settle this.
liter = 2,980,000 hits
litre = 1,050,000 hits
Ha!
--- Ban humanity.
These movies are stunning. I'd love to see more similar material. This is just what might be needed to get public attention back on Nasa & Space Exploration.
Love it!
Wait until after it has made a successful landing and becomes operational. It can be difficult to compare budgets. Development costs can be cut if you are willing to do less testing and accept higher risks. Is the supporting infrastructure "free" or is it charged to the project? Are major components being scrounged from other projects or are they being designed and built from scratch? Who is paying for the data acquisition, archiving, reduction, distribution and analysis? How much of the work is being done by professional employees vs. grad students?
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
These are some awesome videos. Very good work, and a few nice allegations to geekdom, such as the fake MPAA prefix or the catchphrases ("Without risk, there is no reward" - no what does that remind me of? :) )
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
So we're now just waiting for the news that the Beagle has landed.
HH
"In order to build public interest in the Mars Exploration Rovers 2004 missions landing in January, NASA has released a series of movie trailers (Flash enabled page, Windows Media and Quicktime formats) for what they are calling "M2K4".
Glad to see NASA spending my tax dollars on serious projects like movie trailers instead of trivial things like O-rings, heat tiles, and foam insulation...
There are still many things that can go wrong; remember the poor record of successful missions to Mars spans all countries... Russian, Soviet, US and now Japanese.
For one thing, be sure to keep an eye on growing dust storms on Mars... they appear to be mostly confined to the southern hemisphere now, but that might change... and Beagle 2 is landing at only 11 degrees north.
We ALL stand to gain from a successful Beagle 2 mission as well as successful NASA missions.
Or is the picture just for you?!
BitTorrent link for the QT files here
So do you think that someone at NASA feared coming budget cuts?
The lander is completely unpowered as far as propulsion goes. The separation was successful, but there is still plenty that can go wrong. And the same for the two NASA probes. Let's see how it all shakes out before making any conclusions.
John 10:16: "I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; ..."
...".
Some suggest that this passage implies that there is intelligent life other than on Earth. It's a little thin, but other religious beliefs have sprung out of even more tenuous evidence. At the very least, if ET life is found, the Christians could point to this passage and say, "We knew all along
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Hum I think that the edge has nothing to do with number of probes.
NASA had the edge for a long time, maybe it will lose it for a few months to the european with Beagle 2 (maybe not the thing has still many lucks to crash on Mars). And maybe it will recover it with the next missions.
The parent seems a little flamebait to me. And it also seems the submitter of this story is Swiss (.ch on his email) so stop bashing the british please.
Iraq: war to save the U
How did this get modded insightful?
Viewing the science and exploration as a competition makes it appear like you are more interested in the nationalistic aspects of it than the scientific.
IF you have to discuss it, the "we've sent waaay more robotic explorers out there" is a pretty bad point.
I live in Denmark, we had Vikings; The vikings ruled the sea for a very long time. After that we had a LARGE fleet that was comparable to the english for the better part of 18th and 19th century.
Now we can just sit back on our asses for the next couple of decades and STILL have ruled the sea for longer than the americans...
This obviously translates into: Danish sailors kicks american sailor ass.
just like NASA kicks everyone elses ass because they went to the moon before everyone else.
"I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." -George H.W. Bush
Seems that NASA has actually lost the edge in robotic space exploration.
:) ). There are 2 orbiting mars taking pix (one of which I have code helping to control the cams). NASA sends up 1 or more robotic missions per year. The beagle is EU's first real robotic mission. Other than the US, only Russia has done and robotic missions. NASA has not lost the edge.
Nasa is about to place several landers on mars shortly after beagle. They have landed 3 others on mars already (not including 2 that "landed"
They have lost their funding for various missions which makes them the same as Russia. They have had politicians control what missions take place (by providing moneys for their own local fat cats).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
:-) Anyway, I expect the Martian colonies to revolt against Britian in or about 2050 starting with the Cydonia Tea Party.
--- Ban humanity.
So to give equal time to the creationists, will NASA be required to launch a probe called Eden++ or Turbo Ark?
I make my face look like this and concerned words come out.
Well, maybe not yet. I couldn't wait any longer.. :)
In case of slashdotting, there is a mirror here.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
"Viewing the science and exploration as a competition makes it appear like you are more interested in the nationalistic aspects of it than the scientific. "
So why did the article mention NASA loosing its edge? Hypocrite.
Is it possible to moderate the article as trolling?
"Last time I checked, we've still sent waaaay more robotic explorers out there than ESA. If this becomes a competition, we can sit back on our asses for the next decade and still have more sent more probes to other planets - especially mars - then the Europeans have. And don't forget, the Europeans have lost their fair share of mars probes. You might want to be a little less eager with your anti-American delight - you're so obvious it reeks."
Where in here is there a bash on the British? Or do you consider Europeans to only include the British? The parent is no more flamebait than the article submited is.
I was referring to all the british bashing post we can see in this discussion. And no I'm not British and yes the parent is flamebait.
Iraq: war to save the U
Ahh, it's all about needling the US and looking for things to criticize. It's not hard, naturally, even (especially?) internally to find things to criticize.
Unfortunately the same attitude takes the things that are good for granted or delibertately underplays them.
Oh well. At least we've got good teeth, a functional healthcare system, and a constitution. But don't worry -- we're working hard to eliminate all of those things, don't you worry!
Oh don't take it so seriously!!!
And don't forget, the Europeans have lost their fair share of mars probes
Really? I don't doubt our (Europeans) abilities to loose probes(!), its just that I didn't think we'd launched any to Mars before.
These movies were paid for by NASA, which mean they were paid for by me, and all us taxpayers. How come they're in DRM'd formats? Even if they want to use WMV, fine, but give me an unprotected download link.
In the past I've borrowed the VHS from a NASA ambassador and encoded it myself, but why should I have to?
It should be: "I for one hope the Martians welcome their new canine overlords."
They send us little green men, we send dogs.
Lump lingered last in line for brains, and the ones she got were sorta rotten and insane.
And oh I forgot to add that Switzerland is not part of European so I the submitter of this story has nothing to do with British or European Union.
Iraq: war to save the U
exactly, it is an exciting time, because there will be 3 probes on mars!
i am not trying to say hey look "our probe is bigger than your probe" that was sort of started in the by the article itself...
and competition is good, maybe the ESA will find something NASA doesn't
instead of And oh I forgot to add that Switzerland is not part of European so I the submitter of this story has nothing to do with British or European Union.
you should read
"And oh I forgot to add that Switzerland is not part of European Union so the submitter of this story has nothing to do with British or European Union and ESA.
Iraq: war to save the U
I know you didn't mean it but don't forget that Russia is sill partly in Europe (not in the Union though).
And of course, the Vikings also landed on Mars... which was all rather suprising really given that they'd not really been doing that much travelling for a good few fundred years. But facts is facts!
Oh yeah! But if Europe has to count Russian failures then surely we can count there success, so lets see, first man made satalite, first man in space... ;)
I hope the spacecraft does well. I also wish it was possible to read an honest science story without the jabs from left field. Lost their edge? This is based on who's historical revisionism?
Is it rocket science for Slashdot to hire editors who would be considered satisfactory for any other publication to ensure that thousands of people do not have to have a moment of pristine delight spoiled by an editorial policy that rewards knee-jerk jingoism? And how is this even calculated when hours earlier photos were shown from the incredible Spitzer Telescope, which took off from the Cape Canaveral launch facility after being built between the U.S., U.K., and the Netherlands?
It's a simple backhanded comment like this that obviously makes a lot of people feel like they're being fed shit when they could be spending their energy more productively. Geek editor you are unfortunately thy worst enemy. Poster, keep it in your pants! Slashdot, please quickly hire some talent, dudes!
Having been involved with space work a bit the software aspect of the Beagle lander is quite interesting - the reason I know about it is we used the same compiler on the Galileo signal generator project.
ADA is still very popular amongst the European space companies and agencies (for a good reason I think) and particularly the ADA95 Ravenscar profile which gives a miniscule runtime the actual runtime is only about 4-5k which is pretty good considering that contains everything you need to execute the ADA code including tasking.
There is another opensource attempt at a ravenscar compiler called openravenscar funded by ESA here - for Sparc and Intel platforms . Ravenscar is basically a profile that removes the more complex features of the ADA languages to give a mathetmatically provable scheduling - so you can always cater for your worst case scenario. Such small executives are neccessary due to the prohibitive cost of rad hard EEPROMs as most missions have some sort of inflight reprogramming requirements. I think they are using the ERC32 processor which again, is an open source processor, along with its replacement LEON, you can even download the vhdl for the Sparc based leon here
Heres hoping Beagle makes it through the Martian atmosphere and takes some pictures of little green men.
Yes it is.. get a life you dick... or are you just complaining in your own linguistically challenged way that he didn't say 'american' overlords ?
Beagle 2 then separated from the mothercraft... ... The whole process, carried out by a 1.6kg device called the spinup and eject mechanism (SUEM)
In other news:
IBM has partered with NASA and the European Space Agency to apply the same mechanism to SCO.
"Bu hu, look at what the Americans can do!" "Bu hu, we'll build or own GPS and you can get lost!" "Bu hu, the Euro is strong, the dollar is weak" "Bu hu, we saved you weakling European ass in WWI and WWII".
At least the academic world is less teritorial.
Whatever NASA does, ESA will get all the data they ask for.
Whatever ESA does, NASA will get all the data they ask for.
I hope, for one, that we plant the flag of humanity once we take that small first step on the surface of Mars.
Last time I checked we all belonged to that race.
One attempt does not a space program make.
in that the Brits, apart from driving on the left hand side, are the ONLY people in the world to measure fuel consumption in miles per liter. :-)
The Pistols' version would have been cool though.... but at then end of the day I woulda chosen a bowie number.. then the littel green men could just answer.. yes.
bah!*@%!
Is due to the reduced funding for NASA. Pretty simple.
Its a choice that must be made, do we want to be #1 again in space, or do we not. ( and course reap all the benefits as the technology filters down to the rest of us )
Cant get to space on a shoestring.. ( safely anyway )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'd like to point out that Phobos II was a joint Russian ESA project. The Russians really just provided propulsion systems - all the experiments were European.
It's insightful because I put back into perspective the notion that there is inherent risk in exploration no matter who is sending up the probes. This is in stark contrast to the original poster who posited that the Americans have (and I fucking quote) "actually lost the edge" to the Europeans because of one damn little mars probe. So, you can take your viking (aka Nordic Pirates) heritage and blow it out of your nationalistic ass instead of trying to pretend you're not being ethnocentric.
Okay, you're an idiot.
The quantity or quality of the space probes put up by any nation is irrelevent. Exploration of space should be a collective (oh how I hate that word) effort by mankind. But, posters such as you and the root post insist on making it a "us vs the Americans" issue.
As for my post being flamebait, well, you can take it for what it is, but if you insist on calling it bait then you should also cede that you took the bait hook, line, and sinker.
And who the hell is bashing the british?
I haven't seen anyone bash the british in this thread. Perhaps you could stop wasting everyones time by AT LEAST trolling the CORRECT thread?
Aren't they landing TWO vehicles in the next month or so? We heard the same thing when China launched one man into space, orbited him around the earth a few times, and down he came. Good for them. That's great. But, umm, NASA was on the moon in 1969. And even the beleagured shuttle is, like, reusable, not just spam in a can atop an ICBM. I acknowledge the issues with NASA, many of them brought up here, but just because one otehr agency manages to get one vehicle to Mars does not mean NASA has 'lost the edge."
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
I was one of those Beagles.
--This isn't a man who is leaving with his head between his legs.
I created all of the animation in these pieces associated with NASA's MER mission.
t ml
The best way to view them is the 9-minute launch-to-landing music video at:
http://athena.cornell.edu/the_mission/rov_video.h
And downloads including a DVD-spec MPEG-2 stream at:
http://www.maasdigital.com/gallery.html
I also made a bunch of new animation for a NOVA documentary, "Mars, Dead or Alive," which will be shown on PBS January 4-6 (the first MER landing is late night Jan. 3).
The trailers NASA made look neat. Wish they had used our 24p master rather than interlaced video sources though.
I'm amazed that there is all this talk about "NASA landed a probe on Mars about 4 years ago", completely missing the two landers that set down almost 30 years ago!
There is a lot of healthy competetion in planetary exploration. But in a "business" (more than that obviously) where it takes years of effort and YEARS of waiting for your efforts to cruise to their destination (not to mention the tension of launch), seeing anybody make it all work is a cause for celebration.
Anybody who is in this work for any length of time has had to weather a failure, and successes are few enough. I'm sure congratulatory messages (as well as actual) data will flow between planetary exploration scientists in many countries.
This "losing their edge" talk is kind of like the difference between how two veteran football players treat each other versus the rabid fans of their two (current) teams who are fighting in the stands. It's respectful competition v/s rabid fans that can only fantasize about being on the field.
If you worked on designing a semi-autonomous Mars roving vehicle, I don't think you would feel like you were "losing your edge", if you were in the UK or the USA (or any other place)...
There is a US experiment on Mars Express, part of the ASPERA-3 (Analyzer of Space Plasma and Energetic Atoms, http://www.aspera-3.org/) instrument package. I'm a member of the science team for this instrument, and you can see some of my computer simulations of the interaction of energetic space plasmas with the Mars environment at http://www.aspera-3.org/model.pdf.
...
Here's an email I got yesterday:
Dear colleagues,
We are very close to our target! On Dec. 19 Beagle - 2 will be separated
and on Dec. 25 Mars Orbit Insertion executed. ESA is going to cover both
events on live TV on the ESA television and, of course, Internet. Below
follows a short time table for the main events.
All times are in CET (Central European Time ) = UT + 1
December 19
07:51 go/no-go decision to proceed with Beagle-2 ejection
08:21 spacecraft slew starts
08:51 spacecraft slew ends
09:31 first confirmation of separation
ESA TV sending
09:00 - 09:32 approx. (Internet 09:09 - 09:32) First sequence
11:25 - 11:47 approx. (Internet 11:25 - 11:47) Second sequence
12:00 - 12:10 approx. (Internet 12:00 - 12:10) Third sequence
December 24
21:00 MOI "go / no go"
December 25
02:47 MOI execution
02:50 Beagle 2 landing
05:15 Beagle 2 contact with Mars Odyssey
I will inform you about exact times of ESA TV live sending for December
25 later.
The permanent ESA channel:
Astra 2C at 19 degrees East
Transponder 57, horizontal, MPEG-2, MCPC
Frequency 10832 MHz, Symbol Rate 22000 MS/sec, FEC=5/6
Service name: ESA TV
Merry Christmas,
Stas
and another one
Check out ESA's picture of Beagle-2 now
separated from Mars Express.
http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/index.html
Cheers,
Rick
You seem to have missed the point about the vikings... He wasn't being nationalistic, on the contrary he was makin the point that nobody gave a rats ass about vikings because they were ancient history.
Additional videos on the launch, cruise, and landing challenges
:)
They forgot the video of the probes crashing through the Martian surface.
And I agree that the whole thing about "NASA losing the edge" in Mars exploration is facile. Half of the posts so far are about it, which is just increasing the noise to signal ratio here. The blurb would have been better off without it.
The article impresses that while Beagle II will land before those NASA vehicles they had won some kind of race. This is nonsense. Because there is no spacerace.
As mentioned on the ESA and NASA site, they are cooperating. The NASA robots use (if I remember correctly) cameras from Germany. Also if I didn't find something about US-tools aboard Mars Express or Beagle II, I believe they shared technology. For instance the landing mechanism used by Beagle II is quite similar to the one of former NASA missions.
A second point why there is no competitions. The NASA and its european pendant ESA aren't competing in fund raising nor in any matter of money aquisition.
The only competition is on ideas. But as they share the results, its just the prestige they can win.
Before anybody is mentioning "arianespace". They are a more or less private company doing all the commercial stuff e.g. launching satellites. They are a little bit closer to the ESA than Boeing is to the NASA but not much. So they are not competing here either.
Funny thing is I remember once reading an article about how the original Soviet vision of space (well for some of them anyway) was to send poets, writers, and artists into space as well as scientists and soldiers. It's funny that necessity and a bit of imagination and creativity has meant the British Mars shot is doing pretty well that. Go for it and the best of luck to little Beagle!
Jainism? Sikhism? Shinto? Hinduism? Bhuddism? Taoism? Zoroastrianism?
Four of the above do not formally recognize the existence of One True God, so your question makes no sense.
Speaking as a pantheist and a Universalist Unitarian, your question doesn't work for me either. You may as well ask if my neoteric ether has transflogistanized! (uh, I don't know the answer to that one either, perhaps somebody else does.)
However, if I twist my mind back into the contorted, tiny blinders of my fundamentalist christian childhood, I think I can answer your question from that perspective. I imagine the same answer would work for fundamentalist Judaism or Fundamentalist Islam, which seem to work pretty much the same way. Here goes: "YOU ARE EVIL!!!! YOU HAVE WICKED THOUGHTS!!! YOU MUST BOW DOWN TO THE MAJESTY OF THE ONE TRUE LORD!!! YOUR FLESH MUST BE MORTIFIED!!! KILL THE UNBELIEVERS!! KILL!! KILL!!"
Was that the answer you were looking for?
I eventually replaced all the Lucas parts in my sister's MGB with American and German stuff. Bulbs, wires, connectors, etc. after they failed a couple of times I replaced 'em with something better and had no more problems.
I did keep the paired battery arrangement, but six-volt batteries aren't that hard to find...
When she moved to England she took the MG with her, so now she's driving around Southhampton with an American-wired left-hand drive MG. According to her it's vastly more reliable than unmodified ones.
If we're falling behind in the space race, I'll tell you one of the reasons: We're still using that archaic, dumbass English measurement system.
I remember being given metric rulers, reading textbook sections on metric units, etc. when I was a young grade schooler during the Carter Administration, then as soon as Reagan got in, whoosh! Suddenly all plans to convert the nation vanished.
If we fail in multi BILLION dollar missions to Mars or any other destination because someone made a *ucktard conversion mistake, we deserve it. There's no logical reason this country should continue using such a daft, foolish, illogical system of measurement, and I consider this among my greatest national pet peeves.
Everyone against the process of converting standard United States measurements to metric should be boot kicked into orbit, and someone should screw up a conversion to that they fall into the Sun's gravitational pull and fry to a crispy bbq'd cretin--
It's time to join, you know, THE REST OF THE LIVING WORLD and begin using a system that is elegant in simplicity and functional in practice. It would be difficult for about a year until people got used to it, but after that... measurement bliss. I'm telling you.
Dammit.
it already did
It's kind of interesting, actually, that candidates for office don't do this stuff. Even Arnold S. didn't play up his action hero image in running for Gub'nor. If anything he dressed much more schlubbily for the campaign. Apparently we like a little nerdy wonkishness in our leaders? Is that it?
(Who knows, though -- maybe we'll see Wesley Clark try it. There are at least a couple of action hero moments in that guy's career, complete with the car winch from the front of my G.I. Joe jeep in one case I think... He's got no experience in any office, but give him a decent director and the guy's got some good footage in him.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Didn't the theme for this show, show us that we would do this? You all saw the mars lander there in it. Now it has come true...when's the faster then light engines gonna come? :)
No one knows how societies and individuals will react to such news. however, I would predict that there will some people in some cultures who will find that this contradicts their dogma. Need a new dogma? No - the usual mix of denial and hate. These however, are not the reactions that worry me most. There's the other end of the anti-humanist spectrum.
Brights would almost universally find the news exciting and cool. Many (I hope most) religious people will too.
I too, would lke to hear a good definition of life that would be cross-chemistry.
Helium balloons want to be free.
The presence of Hollywood-style trailers is only going to feed the conspiracy theory crowd who are sure the moon landings were faked in Hollywood. Now they can point to the trailers and say "see how easy it is to fake the Mars landings too."
King of Darkness
"The parts falling off of this spacecraft are of the highest british quality".
like ones on china or india... I just wonder why... oh yea! british dont have hungry people on their shores.... neither does any european union nation and heck.. they are all western, hence modern, never mind the fact that they looted the rest of the world to become rich.
it was explained to me like this: "it is going to land like having a car crash at 23,000 miles an hour. we'll wait and see..."
rd
We've being using metric for years. All government contracts use metric. Get a clue.
The Battle of Britain counts for something.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
Waaaay ahead of you, AC--
i c. 02/
It appears you've failed to remember the lost NASA Mars Climate Orbiter mission of September 23, 1999 , attributed to English/metric conversion error.
While it is true that most scientific, medical and military measurements are all metric (and have been for some time, as they should be), there is still enough widespread use of antiquated English measurements to cost us millions, if not billions, of dollars per year in wasted conversion time... and demonstrated losses in valuable scientific exploration. Say, $125 MILLION in losses, for example.
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/1999/30/mars.metr
And when you're done reading that, note the link, "Error points to nation's conversion laq".
YOU get a clue you patronizing imp!
Darwin, the Beagle, discovery of our true origins - monkeys, ahem, move on. Find out if there is bacteria on Mars... there is... ugh! Make astute observation that there probably is weird and wonderful bacteria everywhere. Now what is the application of all this effort? If I could tell you that the nearest planet outside our system has monkeys just as cool as us on it how would that change our lives? Be unperturbed - its VERY far away.
I believe it was 1967, and they had a full day with no traffic at all, to not have any nasty accidents during the switchover itself.
Hurricane Application Group, Dept of Meteorology Control, Ministry of Proactive Defense
Seems that NASA has actually lost the edge in robotic space exploration How can one successful in-flight seperation of an ESA spacecraft cause NASA to loose its edge? Did NASA ever actually have an edge in the first place?
See, I _could_ explain what the original poster meant, but it's easier just to mock you for being retarded.
:D
mock mock mock
there