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."

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[fruey]

What I find so amazing about this (national pride aside) is that the budget is so low, and yet the science done on this mission is allegedly more complex and thorough, quoting from the Yahoo news story I just read "It will be far cheaper and contain far more science than either of the two U.S. Martian rovers that will be landed from Mars Odyssey in January."

How is this so? Why are the US projects so much more expensive?