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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."
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
Uhh, NASA has already been to Mars, multiple times.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Actually a different budget constraint ended up pushing NASA ahead; in the early sixties, the russian rockets were way more powerful than the american ones, so very tight weight and size constraints forced the american efforts to focus much harder on miniaturization. This, in the end, proved to be a much more effective edge than bigger launch vehicles.
:)
I hate to say this (as I am a scientist myself, and appreciate funding as much as the next guy), but constraints are in many cases a great motivator and focusing lens on what is truly important. With a nearly unlimited monetary/time/resource-budget, you'd likely waste most of it on nonessentials; in many cases perhaps the essentials would never even be identified, but lost in the sea of nice-to-haves.
Naturally, the above does in no way affect my particular work, which is always essential and topical, so please do not hesitate to send me lots of money, ok?
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.