Beagle 2 - a Lesson in Science Communication: Have You Heard of Beagle 2? It Is Our Ambition to Have Everybody in the Country Aware of the Project When It Lands on Mars at Xmas 2003. (the Physics of the Universe)

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For those who don't know already, it's a joint effort between British academics and our space industry to answer age-old questions concerning life on the Red Planet -- does it, did it, could it exist? A positive answer would be the vital first step in addressing an even more fundamental puzzle -- are we alone in the universe?

Beagle 2 is named to honour the ship which took charles Darwin around the world in the 1830s and led to the writing of On the Origin of Species. HMS Beagle and her achievements in terms of exploration and science are still remembered 170 years later.

When we first proposed the idea of Britain building a Mars lander and its instruments, …