Well - you may think that there was never any chance of it succeeding - but the project DID undergo a review by JPL and ESA - both of whom could have red-flagged the mission - but didnt.

The money spent is not wasted. It's money that went back into UK science and technology industry anyway - and has developed instruments that fit mass and volume budgets that couldnt even be imagined 5 years ago.

What WILL make it a waste of money - is if a follow-on mission is not funded. It'[s all too easy to rubbish Pillingers efforts when Nasa are stomping around with two rovers - but let us not forget that NASA had three lander failures and an orbiter failure in 1998 - and russia tried many many MANY times to land on mars and never managed it succesfully. With recent success - it's easy to forget, mars is bloody hard to do. That Beagle 2 made it to the launch pad within the budgets of mass, power, volume and scheduling is an achievment in itself in my opinion.

" It wasn't going to produce much new science."

Nasa already knows what the instruments were going to tell us do they? Really? When did they fly anything near as sensitive as GAP, when did NASA last fly anything with the ability to dig to a depth of >1m and collect samples from under rocks. NASA has a two microscopes on mars, sure, but they are nowhere NEAR as caperble as that designed for Beagle 2. Yes - B2 was flying a copy of the MER Mossbauer Spec, and an instrument similar to the APXS - but other than that, B2's payload was fairly unique and groundbreaking.

That it failed to survive EDL should not detract from the caperbilities of the payload, which were unique, and considerable.

Doug