[meteorite-list] Beagle 2 To Search For Life On Mars

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:02:25 2004
Message-ID: <200203051656.IAA16602_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/03/03/nmars03.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/03/03/ixhome.html

Mission to Mars from Milton Keynes
By Jenny Booth
The Telegraph (United Kingdom)
March 3, 2002

THE man most likely to answer the question "Is there life on Mars?" is not a
Nasa scientist in a Houston laboratory but a 58-year-old, wild-haired professor
who keeps cows on a farm in Cambridgeshire.

Prof Colin Pillinger is the mastermind behind Britain's first space probe, Beagle
2, which is due to land on Mars on December 23, 2003, and spend six months
analysing Martian rocks, soil and gases for signs that the planet ever supported
life.

It is only Prof Pillinger's enthusiasm and implacable faith that have turned into
reality his academic obsession with the search for life on Mars. He is a
specialist in analysing rocks from other planets and has extensively studied
Martian meteorites.

Evidence of life from meteorites is not conclusive, however, because they might
be contaminated with organic matter after arriving on Earth. The only way to find
out for sure was to get hold of some genuine, uncontaminated Martian rock.

Prof Pillinger saw his chance in 1997 when the European Space Agency
announced that it was sending an orbiter to Mars in 2003, when the Red Planet
will be closer to Earth than at any time in the past 6,000 years.

Soon afterwards, when the agency met in Paris, Prof Pillinger turned up and
convinced the organisation, which is co-funded by Britain, that the Mars
Express mission would not be complete without a landing probe. Beagle 2 will, in
fact, be Europe's first mission to the surface of another planet.

His success meant that Prof Pillinger then had to invent and build a space
probe. With no British space programme to compare to Nasa, he had to start
from scratch, pulling together a team of scientists and engineers.

In the grand tradition of British scientific endeavour, the project began with no
funding, so for the first couple of years the team worked without pay in their own
time.

Their designs for the ship and its instruments underwent numerous ESA tests to
prove that their viability - and passed with flying colours.

But financial worries have continued to plague the project. It still has no serious
government funding, leaving Prof Pillinger minus £35 million. Uniquely in the
history of space exploration, the lander will be paid for largely through
advertising and sponsorship.

Maurice and Charles Saatchi, both fans of the project, are helping to negotiate
the deals, making Beagle 2 the first space probe with company logos on its side
ever to land on a planet. There will even be domestic merchandising.

This method of fund raising has ruffled feathers in the scientific establishment.
"I used to get telephone calls saying: 'If you persist in trying to fund the project
this way, you will damage the astronomy programme. It's verboten - you
shouldn't be trying to commercialise science like that,' " says Prof Pillinger.

"I had some telephone messages left by people whose voices I even
recognised. There are one or two dark alleys I wouldn't want to walk down."

Beagle 2, however, has provoked equally passionate support in others. There
seems to be something about the sheer improbability of the mission that
captures the imagination.

This may be helped by the endearing appearance of the craft. At 3ft wide and
weighing nine stone, it looks like a cross between a flying saucer and a Heath
Robinson cartoon.

When the Beagle lands and deploys its solar cells, it will, true to its name, look
like a dog's paw print on the planet surface. Then a spindly, robotic arm will
emerge, its knuckles bristling with cameras and rock grinders.

Whatever Beagle 2's appeals, Prof Pillinger cannot walk down the street without
being slapped on the back, asked for an autograph, or even pressed to accept a
worn tenner for the project.

Schoolchildren send in their pocket money. Pensioners have written to him at
the Open University's Planetary and Space Sciences Research Institute in
Milton Keynes offering their services to make tea for the Beagle scientists.

Blur, the pop band, has composed a musical call-sign for Beagle 2 to emit to
establish communications once it lands. Damien Hirst, the artist, is producing
one of his spot paintings to be printed inside its lid to enable the craft to
calibrate its cameras.

But Beagle 2's winsome looks and the fact that Britons are space novices belie
the ground-breaking science that has gone into the project. The technology on
board is more sophisticated and comprehensive than anything yet sent to Mars
by Nasa.

The jewel in the crown, and what Prof Pillinger hopes will answer the question of
life on Mars, is a miniature mass spectrometer invented by his team, capable of
performing a wide range of experiments on Martian rock and soil samples.

For Prof Pillinger, the preoccupation with the little lander could have come at a
heavy personal price, but he has managed to avoid letting it destroy his homelife
by keeping it in the family.

His wife of 27 years, Judith, a microbiologist and a research fellow at the Open
University, has long since been roped into the Beagle project.

"It is better this way, and no, I don't think I resent it," she says, with a
phlegmatic smile. "OK, there are days when people start ripping out their hair
and shouting, but it doesn't last.

"In fact, having it 24 hours a day makes it easier: if I didn't work on it, I would
never see Colin."

Prof Pillinger also has another family to keep his feet firmly on the ground: his
herd of 21 superannuated dairy cows, including 22-year-old Juno.

"I can go to all the meetings I like, but if I get home and find my favourite animal
is sick and lying in a dark corner of the yard, then it is time to get my coat off
and fix it.

"It can't wait because she could be dead in an hour," he said. "The cows bring
me back to Earth."
Received on Tue 05 Mar 2002 11:56:49 AM PST