Mars Express and Beagle 2

[Madison]

Maybe it's the exhibit we debuted at work dealing with space that's made the difference, but lately, I've been excited about space and spaceflight again.

[IMDWalrus]

Originally Posted by M. Krass

Maybe it's the exhibit we debuted at work dealing with space that's made the difference, but lately, I've been excited about space and spaceflight again.

Me too, oddly enough. I was thinking that it was just that I've become friends with a few people who are really into NASA, but it looks like it's not just happening to me...

Wouldn't it be cool if interest in the space program went up again?

[Adam Y.]

When they were not able to repeat the Wright brothers flight earlier this month, inspite of modern aerospace knowledge, millions of dollars of funding, and a hundred years of experience over the Wright brothers

Actually the planes worked. Mother nature just was not cooperating. The plane needs an massive amount of headwind to fly but unfortunately the wind was shifting all over the place. Those guys are ingenious. Their assitant maganed to make their own gasoline engine with steam powered tools. The accuracy rivaled todays automated tools.

[KenWittlief]

I give the reproduction team that built the flyer for this years anniversary a lot of credit- but they had a very difficult time flying it. I saw a program documenting what they did on a cable channel. They few it a few weeks before the big day, and only went about 90 feet, shorter that Orvilles' first flight.

they tried to fly it again and it stalled on takeoff, nosed into the ground causing a significant amount of damage - I dont know if they have yet successfully flow the replica plane as far as Orville did on his longest flight.

There were many aspects of the original plane that were not recorded - we dont know how tightly it was strung (the guy wires), how ridgid or flexible the plane was - its the small details that make a machine like that work or fail

the Wright brothers worked it all out with a very hands-on approach - something you cant get from a computer simulation

Orville flew by the seat of his pants - those pants should be in the Smithsonian next to the plane :c)

[Adam Y.]

There were many aspects of the original plane that were not recorded - we dont know how tightly it was strung (the guy wires), how ridgid or flexible the plane was - its the small details that make a machine like that work or fail

Well the original plane still exists. Unfortunately the plane was crashed before they got it into the museum. So it is only a rendidition of what they thought the plane should have looked like. Those guys were amazing. They designed there wings after playing around with a macaroni box in their bicycle shop.

I give the reproduction team that built the flyer for this years anniversary a lot of credit- but they had a very difficult time flying it.

Actually there was more than one reproduction plane. One ended up crashing because the plane was heading for a forest and there was no brakes on the plane.

[Wetzel]

Current status

28-Dec-2003
21:50 GMT

No signal received via Odyssey.
.....................

28-Dec-2003
01:20 GMT

No signal received by the Stanford University telescope but equipment was not operating at its highest level of performance.

January 4th is when Mars Express will be in positition to listen for Beagle. Great hope remains until then.

Communication Strategy of the Beagle 2 "Think Tank"

Wetzel