"Cousin Ricky" <ric### [at] yahoocom> wrote in message

> Or typing a period in a computer program where there should have been a
> comma.  Er... OK, so it *could* have happened if NASA hadn't caught the 
> bug
> in time.  Unfortunately, they didn't catch the missing hyphen in Mariner 
> 1's
> backup guidance software...
>
> And the most grievous error of all:  Sending your space ship to Mars! 
> After
> Spirit and Opportunity successfully docked with the Angry Red Planet, NASA
> convened a study to find out what went *right*. :-O

Actually, it's good to keep in mind that NASA has landed 5 spacecraft 
successfully on Mars out of 6 attempts (the accidental attempt to land an 
*orbiter* doesn't count! ;-) -  I'm referring to MCO; I'm also not counting 
penetrators).

Mars has "eaten" a lot of spacecraft. The former USSR tried several times 
and was unsuccessful. Beagle was a high-risk attempt that failed. It's too 
bad these probes were not heard from again, because I'm sure they would have 
produced fascinating results. To provide some balance, the former USSR was 
successful twice at returning images from the surface of Venus - an 
admirable accomplishment when you consider the conditions on the surface of 
that hellish place.

Recently, the images returned by the Soviet Venera craft have been 
reprocessed using modern techniques. The newly revitalized images are very 
nice and worth a long look:

http://tinyurl.com/yn7dtf

Space exploration, planets, etc. are all a great field to take inspiration 
for POV art!

Jon

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