I wonder if Colin Pillinger will get a response from anyone at NASA regarding his Beagle 3 suggestion.

What exactly did he say about the rovers that annoyed so many people? There's this from NASA Watch:

"Editor's note: Now I have seen everything. For years Colin Pillinger dumped on the U.S. and the way it builds spacecraft. Then he crashes his spacecraft on Mars - most likely because he cut too many corners - and his country loses faith in him. Now he tries to get a ride on a U.S. Mars mission due to lack of enthusiasm back home. What a hypocrite."

That they were crap, basically

Which was not a clever thing to say when the only chance of getting your payload to the surface is to do it yourself ( which he failed at ) or hitching a ride with the Americans.

Doug

Here are a few articles:

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The scientist behind Europe's lander mission to Mars has launched an extraordinary attack on the American space agency, Nasa, and its plans to return to the Red Planet.

Professor Colin Pillinger said the agency's twin rovers would be engaged in little more than a jaunt around the planet's rocky surface when they touch down in 2004 and would be part of some questionable science.

He claimed Europe's static lander, named Beagle 2, would achieve far more than Nasa's so-called Athena package and at a fraction of the cost.

"I'm swapping sightseeing by Athena for science on Beagle 2," Professor Pillinger told the British Association's Festival of Science.

But the Open University-based researcher questioned the quality of some of the rovers' equipment.

"Nasa's Athena has an inferior complement of science instruments," he said. "Indeed, their spectrometers are geared up for looking for hydrogen rather than water - they will infer water is present if they find hydrogen."


from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/sci_te...ence/922925.stm

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In 2000, Pillinger pilloried the NASA rovers as "much less scientifically accomplished." Unlike them, he told a meeting of British scientists, "Beagle 2 won't be going sightseeing."

(yup, it didn't)

from: http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/06/02/mars.race/