Wreckage Of Beagle 2 Found? Options

[imran]

Wreckage of Beagle found scattered in Mars crater

Talk about being unlucky assuming this is confirmed.

[Phil Stooke]

Nice image processing, Doug - or 'the other Phil' as I think you should now be called.

I have no confidence in this finding, alas. In particular, as Doug's enlarged image of the crater shows, the three-dot pattern suggested to be the airbags could be matched to a thousand locations in that MOC image alone. I thought the MPL location was much more solid, and that turned out to be a mistake.

Phil

[JRehling]

I have no confidence in this finding, alas.  In particular, as Doug's enlarged image of the crater shows, the three-dot pattern suggested to be the airbags could be matched to a thousand locations in that MOC image alone.  I thought the MPL location was much more solid, and that turned out to be a mistake.

Phil

I mightily agree. I would bet "the field" against this site being the actual site. MRO can show us the closeup when it arrives.

The story of the ongoing rhetorical huffing and puffing is rather sad. Before the arrival, it was confidence bordering on arrogance, which wouldn't have been a problem if it had been Pillinger vs. Mars instead of Pillinger vs. NASA Yanks. Now it's all too predictable that he would grasp at an unlikely detection and argue that it was the right design but just bad luck. I think the "hole in one" idea is a subliminal transfer from Opportunity. My bet is that MRO will show Beagle 2 sitting crashed on open ground, and then Pillinger won't have anything but the unexpectedly thin atmosphere to scapegoat and avoid concluding that his design was wrong.