re: Exactly on point
That is simply not true, Don. Beagle 2 and similar ideas have been bouncing around for years. A low cost add on is not a bad idea. The problems they ran into were related to testing not just conception or design.
If they had had the time a money to test the parachute decent, three airbags and the aeroshell design better things might of been different. BUT, It may all come down to the crappie model of the atmosphere we have and it maybe only a sad failure of that model. You do realize that Spirit almost made the negative side of the list of successes and failures for the lack of good data for that model...