'Money Woes' Foiled Beagle 2 Shot

[zavvy]

<b>'Money Woes' Foiled Beagle 2 Shot</b><br /><br />LINK<br /><br />A report into the loss of British Mars probe Beagle 2 says a failure by the UK government to commit funds early enough undermined the project's credibility. <br /><br />The House of Commons science and technology select committee report says this could have warned off sponsorship income that the project badly needed. <br /><br />It left the Beagle consortium with an "amateurish" gentleman's agreement holding it together, says the report. <br /><br />But the time and effort invested in the project must not be wasted, it adds. <br /><br />Participants have welcomed the report's recognition of the positive effect the project had on British space science. <br /><br />The report says the £25m of taxpayers' money science minister Lord Sainsbury put toward bailing out the lander was money well spent. But the report emphasises that the necessary funding was not there at the beginning, when it was most needed. <br /><br />Dr Ian Gibson MP, chairman of the select committee of MPs that produced the report, said: "[The European Space Agency] and the UK wanted a Mars lander on the cheap. The DTI [Department of Trade and Industry] should have been on the pitch getting involved, rather than cheering from the touchline and coming on as a second half substitute when things went wrong. <br /><br />"As a result, the scientists had to go chasing celebrities for sponsorship when they might have been testing rockets." <br /><br />Professor David Southwood, the European Space Agency (Esa) director of science told the BBC News website: "The view that things ought to be done differently in future comes across very clearly and that it should be done in a more integrated manner under Esa leadership. That is something I wholeheartedly subscribe to." <br /><br />The informal arrangements keeping the project together come in for sharp criticism. The report cites as an example

 

[siarad]

Yes: raffle tickets, car boot sales, garden fêtes & pleas to pop groups was hardly conducive to concentrated effort when facing a short time scale too. Professor Colin Pillinger still owes money he borrowed against his home, the price of a dream which sadly failed