In support of the assertion that Astrium stands to profit by skrewing up the Beagle 2 mission, one would have thought that Lockheed Martin's 1999 Mars fowl-ups (documented at:

http://www.SpaceProjects.com/Mars )

would have led to a reduction in its role in future Mars projects, right? Not so. Indeed, LockMart managed to prompt Congress to spend MORE money on Mars endeavors in the aftermath of its (self-inflicted?) 1999 failures. Here's a Space.com newsfeed from nearly a year ago which shows how monopolistic Lockheed actually bids against itself for NASA contracts regarding Mars:

"Four science proposals backed by Lockheed Martin Space Systems swept NASA’s Mars Scout competition, all but assuring the Denver-based company a leading role in the $350 million mission the space agency plans to launch to the red planet in 2007. NASA officials selected the proposals from a field of 25 Dec. 6 for six months and $500,000 worth of additional study each. NASA plans to pick one of the four by August for development as the agency’s first Mars mission selected via a wide-open competition. James Crocker, vice president of space exploration systems at Lockheed Martin, said he was surprised and humbled to learn that all four finalists were backed by his company. Lockheed Martin backed nine proposals in all."

Meanwhile, here's a NASA HQ press release (#03-256) which helps document this: "NASA [has] selected Phoenix, an innovative and relatively low cost mission, to study the red planet, as the first Mars Scout mission. The Phoenix lander mission is scheduled for launch in 2007. The 2007 Scout mission joins a growing list of spacecraft aimed at exploring Mars. It also represents NASA's first fully competed opportunity for a dedicated science-driven mission...Principal Investigator, Dr. Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz., leads the Phoenix mission in a partnership with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., and ***Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver.*** In addition, the Canadian Space Agency is contributing a meteorological package that includes a lidar sensor to study polar climate."

By the way, one thing that NASA isn't eagerly volunteering is that a significant portion of the "victorious" Phoenix mission was already paid for by U.S. taxpayers during the 1999 Mars debacle era.

LockMart has also gotten somewhere around a billion dollars to "study" Mars sample returns, has it not? Why wasn't that money instead offered as a competitive prize for SUCCESSFUL Mars sample returns?

http://www.SpaceProjects.com/prizes

Or why wasn't the Mars sample return contract offered to anyone BUT LockMart? For more information on this and other bureaucrat-inflicted scandals with our tax dollars, feel free to consult:

http://www.SpaceProjects.com/Mars-underachievement