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Mars Crater Theory Tries To Explain Missing Beagle

Posted by simoniker on from the put-face-on-mars'-eye-out dept.

JayBonci writes "CNN is running a piece regarding the failure of the Beagle Mars probe being possibly attributed to a crater landing. It's an interesting story about the variety of forensics being used to try and pick up on the lost craft."

3 of 362 comments (clear)

  1. Line of sight? by switcha · · Score: 5, Insightful
    It is possible, although unlikely, that the Beagle may be unable to communicate because it landed in the crater, he said.

    Now, my knowledge of astronomy and all related things extends about as far as "Look. The moon!", but if you can get shots of the crater like this, then how can the probe be "buried" in the crater so far as to not be able to communicate? We're lookin' right into it, there.

    Was that photo from Earth? Was that photo from another probe? Do we never see that view from Earth?

    Seems like the damn thing just broke. Admit it.

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    You know what? ... A little club soda *did* get that out!
  2. Re:Yes, yes, blame it on a crater... Sheesh by Mac+Degger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    *cough*basicsofmaterialscience*cough*usebestmateri alsforjob*cough*

    Although you're spot on about the airbags. Hell, the original pair blew up during pressure testing too!

    But don't overestimate our geographical knowledge of Mars, or underestimate Mars' irregularity. Landing something in an unfamiliar, hostile atmosphere without complete knowlede of the landing zone is difficult. Just have a look at where the Mars Rover was meant to go and where it actually landed for a good idea of the uncertainties involved.

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    -- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
  3. Re:Is it pre-programmed to do anything? by wass · · Score: 4, Insightful
    It was already cheap and even if it cost millions it was very inexpensive compared to the Pathfinder or the incoming M2K4-Landers from Nasa.

    I just want to chime in here a bit.

    People have been saying NASA missions are much more costly than Beagle 2, and therefore NASA is wasteful (this was implied by BBC and later removed from articles after they couldn't contact the craft).

    Pathfinder was a Discovery class mission, and had a budget of $250 million. This is about 4x Beagle's budget of $60 million.

    If anybody wants to say NASA is wasteful by looking at those numbers, they must realize the following

    • Beagle 2 made use of the parachute/airbag landing system that was tested and demonstrated by the Pathfinder team
    • Pathfinder had an autonomous (ie, not controlled realtime by a human) rover while Beagle 2 has a robotic arm.
    • Pathfinder (IIRC) had a high-gain antenna which could communicate w/ Earth while Beagle 2 only has low-gain antenna to communicate with Mars orbiting craft with small hopes of Earth receiver arrays of detecting the craft.
    Beagle 2 may have been cheaper but that doesn't mean it was necessarily more efficiently planned. Pathfinder had more complicated tasks to conduct, and also had more rigorous testing, and thus cost more.

    It's just annoying to see BBC showing nationalistic bias and taking jabs at NASA when we should all really be working together in the exploration process. Especially in areas of science where nationalistic bias shouldn't exist at all.

    Just my two cents.

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    make world, not war