A follow up story on the mars mission. It doesn't look or sound to good.

Hopes are fading that the British Beagle 2 probe landed safely on Mars on Christmas morning, as the lander has missed its second opportunity to make contact.

Mission controllers were first disappointed when NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft failed to hear any signals from Beagle 2 shortly after its scheduled touchdown on the Martian surface.

More here.

thats too bad first snoopy now this can the world really take the loss of anouther beagle :-(

That 40 mill could have been spent on so many other useful things.......like.....me

is it just me or does anyone else think NASA needs to stop losing its uberexpensive mars toys?

hmmmm, here on the nasa channel in FL, periodically they show these little 5 minute clips about various things, the one for the mars probe thing you guys are talking about was supposed to have airbags on it when it landed so itdidnt fly apart when it landed. what happens is shortly after re-entry, a small parachute is deployed followed by three larger ones and then this airbag thing that looks like a cluster of white beachballs deploys which covers the entire spacecraft, and then it hits the ground, bounces a few times and then the bags deflate and it unfolds kind of like a flower blossoming and then it takes off and does its thing.

Why exactly do we need to know this much about a place that we cannot get to?

I don't understand why people are so facinated with space outside of the orbit of earth... I say we cancel the NASA program and just let Private business do it if they want and start a new NASA that is only military not exploration and save tons of money and spend that on a national health plan and more money in schools!

Some people care if there was life there...

Didn't you know that NASA incorperates the top 2 ways our tax money is spent;

1. Inventing secret stuff
2. Sending secret stuff into space

NASA does stuff like this because humans are enginnered to explore. Many advances in medical science came from studies similar to this one. Who knows? Maybe they will get this thing working and find a microbe on Mars that could cure cancer. People said the same thing about Skylab, the Apollo missions, the Russian Mir, and now the ISS space station. Whenever someone has a dream, non-believers will always be there to show ten reasons why it wont work for every reason that it will. People said Lance Armstrong would never participate in another Tour De France after his battle with cancer. Now he has won the last five TDF's in a row. And I wouldn't be surprised to see him do it a sixth time.

No matter what dreams you may have, non-believers will always be there to show you it can't be done. Life would be very boring if all we did was study our own planet. Just my .02

I just think that its more important to at least spend a little less on NASA and spend more on the people...

We Americans are simple folk, we like our cars fast, and women hot. But considering the fact that the earth is going to eventually die, and be devoid of resources. We need to start thinking about getting off said Terra.

Mars is, at the moment, our best chance at salvation. So we can suck the resources dry of that planet too.

And money in schools? Uhm, how about some decent teachers, that aren't just worried about ten-year, collecting a paycheck, or drunk.

Money to people? 3 words- Get a Job

---This has been a public service announcement---

_Duh_!

Do you know how much NASA actually spent on the Beagle 2 project?


$0 & 0c

Quote: Originally Posted by Jonny English _Duh_! Do you know how much NASA actually spent on the Beagle 2 project? $0 & 0c

Dude - you know better than to point out they don't know how to read! Though at this point I'm sure ESA would have perferred it to be mistaken for a NASA screw up.

ADD: Evil3lf - it's not the governments job to throw more money at problems and get even less for it. Remember, the US is the prime example of throwing money at education and getting near nothing in return. We spend the most to get the lest amount of results in our educational system. Eh.. we need to admit it - us Americans are raising children that become flat out lousy students on average - it's all there other than safety concerns which are almost solely caused by fellow students. Also to hit a little closer to home - Oregon state lotto funds are s'posed to go to the state's educational system (based upon advertisements that they used to legalize it), but has diverted most all of it to roads. Best roads I ever seen are in Ory-gun, but when I lived there they closed a LOT of skewls last year.

Quote: Originally Posted by Hurt Me Plenty And money in schools? Uhm, how about some decent teachers, that aren't just worried about ten-year, collecting a paycheck, or drunk.

Herein lies the problem of the Catch-22 variety, you won't have better schools wothout better teachers but you won't have better teachers unless you start paying them more.
That profession should be one of the highest paying there is in my opinion because of it's importance to the continued growth/culture of this country yet many teachers are at the poverty line economically. The only two bad things that I can think of off the top of my head about spending more money for schools are superintendants that would embezzle money (mine did back in the 80s) and paying teachers that aren't worth a damn. But even that couldn't be worse than those that abuse our welfare system because at least they are working (somewhat).

EDIT:
Iateromly's post (while I was posting apparenty) proves the point about needing more money for schools.

You are right Godfoot, more money in schools should mean more money for the teachers. But if more money is put into the school system, it has to be divided into all the school systems in the U.S., and then into all faculty of said school district. That probably comes up to dividing whatever is given to the schools by about 120 thousand teachers, in elementary and secondary school teachers. Not much left on a per person basis there.

*controversial statement of the day*
Personally I think the whole public school system thing, after 8th grade, should just be cut out, just like a cancer. And divert half the saved money to the rest of the teachers, and the other half to the colleges, to pay for the general education of the students that want to make something of themselves. This helps eliminate the waisted resources of trying to teach scum. But that is just me.
*/controversial statement of the day*

sorry, for the rant and leading the off topic-ness here.

Later, I have to agree with you on that lotto thing... it really is too bad that they are allowed to do that because of the state of the schools and economy in Oregon.