Lost beagle on Mars?

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/Stories/0,1413,206~11851~1856076,00.html ^

[Nick Danger]

Professor Colin Pillinger, the Brit who headed up this effort, is a PR genius. From the warm puppy overtones of the name "Beagle" to his continual use of mother-and-baby imagery when discussing this $62 million contraption, this guy has the whole world wondering what happened to his toy.

Listen to this, from this article:

there are worries about its safety

Its safety? Gimme a break, it's a hunk of tin. If it went -splat- into the mountainside, that's too bad, but that's why we send machines instead of people at this stage of our Mars "expertise."

dulcet tones signaling its safe arrival

Our own more prosaically named Mars Exploration Rovers are due to arrive soon, and I bet they won't be emitting any dulcet tones. And the satellite already in place overhead isn't their mommy. But maybe they will do something else. Maybe they will work.

[jaz.357]

HELLO EARTH...We MARTIANS are tired of your space crap. You keep sending one after the other and we keep SMASHING the S#!T out of them! Won't you EVER learn?

PS: Send Pamela Anderson back.

[martian_22]

It's true. We're eating the hardware.
Send more probes. They're delicious.

[mewzilla]

Marvin and his Illudium Q-38 Explosive Space Modulator strike again.

[rs79bm]

LOL.

P.S. --send more cameras next time.

[al baby]

Is this it ?

[BenLurkin]

[martian_22]

LOL!
It's so me.

[mewzilla]

Pasadina: Looking good, going good, we're getting great pictures here at NASA control Pasadina. Landing craft touched down on Mars 28 kilometers from the aim point. We're looking at a remarkable landscape, littered with different kinds of rocks. Red, purple... how about that, Burmuda?
Burmuda: Fantastic. Look at that dune field!
Pasadina: Hey, wait, I- I'm getting a no-go signal. Now I'm losing one of the craft. Hey Burmuda, you getting it?
Burmuda: Nah, lost contact. There's a lot of dust blowing up there.
Pasadina: Now I lost the second craft. We got problems.
Burmuda: Full contact lost, Pasadina. Maybe the antenna's--...
Pasadina: What's that flare? See it? A green flare coming from Mars. Kind of a green mist behind it. It's getting closer. You see it, Burmuda? ...Come in, Burmuda! ...Houston, come in! What's going on... tracking station 43 Canberra, come in Canberra!... tracking station 63, can you hear me Madrid... can anybody hear me? Come in...! Come in...........!

[mewzilla]

It's from Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds, and I don't think the transcriber can spell :)

[Fenris6]

"Professor Colin Pillinger, the Brit who headed up this effort, is a PR genius."

LOL. Have to admit he snared me in :) I am so wery wery worried about our the poor wittle Beagle. Hah. Nice job Prof.

[Jonah Hex]

"The chances of life existing on Mars are a million-to-one" he said....

Better ready the THUNDERCHILD, just in case.

:-)

[mewzilla]

And scattered about it, some in their overturned war-machines, some in the now rigid handling-machines, and a dozen of them stark and silent and laid in a row, were the Martians -- DEAD! -- slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared; slain as the red weed was being slain; slain, after all man's devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth.

[martian_22]

Sorry. The Earth just had to go.
It blocked my view of Venus.

[Hunble]

Look at the bright side, this could have been a manned mission to Mars.

Robots first, Man second!

[mewzilla]

ROTF!

[Malcolm]

LOL, the Europeans have not have good luck vis-a-vis the US this year. May this continue unabated in 2004.....

[Calvin Locke]

The Earth just had to go.

It was infected with liberals. As the infected cows go, so go the infected planets.

OTOH, ...got to build bypasses...