Tough competition Out go ambitious plans for a series of missions culminating in a sample of Mars rock being brought back to Earth by 2008. A series of missions is a series of potential disasters for which Nasa no longer has the stomach or the finances. The agency knows the Red Planet exerts a powerful hold over the public, which translates into good PR for them, and that means Mars missions remain popular as well as scientifically important. With the discovery of evidence for recent flowing water on the Red Planet, Nasa is itching to get back in business. And yet, it could well be beaten by the European Space Agency.
Luck still plays a large part in space exploration.
Nasa may well pull itself out of its current gloomy patch but a worst case scenario sees the Europeans beating them back to Mars, and their own mission, announced on Friday, proving to be another costly failure.