"I'd like to know what they Euorpean general public has to say about there ESA people and performance. "

I'm a Brit - and thus - European :)

Yesterdays and todays papers have had pictures - todays Times has the colour image large and in full view - and this, plus probably a 2.5 minute piece on the news. Thats all that 99.9% of the European public will ever see and would ever care to see - and so, in that respect, ESA did exactly what was necessary for press purposes.

That remaining .1% of people who might have been playing closer attention will have seen some news stories on esa.int - and seen a few more pics.

The press coeverage was adequate - no more, no less. As a payer of taxes in europe - I'd rather the scientists were given the time to produce proper results and then the press take notice then - but sadly, the media and the public have the attention span of a goldfish and unles they see THE picture ( in this instance, the landed image ) very soon - they get very bored.

Bottom line - for those that dont really care about such things - enough info was divulged quickly enough - and for those that do care about such things, they should know that they take time.
Doug