h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Try http:www.badastronomy.com
(think that's right...)

Try http://www.badastronomy.com

Good link.

I think this person is just as locked in their view as the hoaxers!

His patter is like the astronomers who keep changing the big bang theory every time it is undermined however I will concede that the facts put forward by him are probably irrefutable. Like I say I'm not sold either way and reading that site doesn't greatly alter my view.

Governments and people in positions of power have the ability to do and stage things that will take tremendous effort to refute. Sympathies lie both ways and I'm for leaving some doubt because THEY have all of the power and resources. Until we are 100% sure, I will never be sold.

People seem to forget it's often simpler to just do something than it is to fake the doing of it - men more than likely went to the moon, if bullets wren't magic they wouldn't kill anywhere near as many people and can over 500 people really be that offended by a TV ad for cakes?

what was the greatest cost in this mission?

Getting launched. the beagle, the mother ship! or developing the technology of it?

My point being, if they are going to all the trouble - why didn't they have a beagle 2 and send 2 down in case 1 didn't work. They could have dropped at a different location so if both worked then they could have comparative samples. If one doesn't work then they have a back up, and if neither work then would the cost have having the spare been so much more when compared to the cost of a semi-failed mission?

I know this is off topic, but what was the advert about?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3348489.stm

Looking grim, watchers

I dó understand from the BBC-World newsreport, that the machine can survive at its own for twenty days and thats the reason why they don't give up receiving the signal.

But maybe it all just crashed.........

P.S. Was it just one time man was on the moon (I looked at it - live on t.v. -) or were there more occasions?

I thought three.

Good point Alfredo..I too have forgotton

There were several times - up to Apollo 18 i think (13 didn't make it to the lunar surface remember) - the program was scrapped with one mission left to run...

The ad was for Mr.Kippling, showed a vicar and a teacher in the wings at a "Nativity Play" set in a birthing room in a hospital with all the modern kit around, Mary screaming her head off, then the cry of the newborn infant and the father shouting "It's a girl!"

I liked it

The tag-line was:

TEACHER: Has Mr.Kippling directed a nativity play before?
VICAR (mouth full): No but he does make exceedingly good cakes

I think this Mars mission is Kerplunked.

I heard someone on the radio saying that "taking part is the reward"

Is it heck!

Who do these Teletubby folks think the UK public are?

Cheeky folks....

We've got 20 days before all hope is lost

Ok, the poor little might may be smashed to smithereens but also, it may just be that what we're trying to listen to it with can't talk the language

The thing has'nt even got a proper antenna. It'll cost more to look for a signal than the thing cost to build. It's a joke.

It's a shame NASA's probes weren't carrying Beagle's experiments, simpler, more effective proof of 'liff'

Yeah DS...it's just plain daft. More political than out else. I suppose it gives our firms a go, but it isn't right that they're egos get the better of common sense.

I laughed today when I heard the whole thing described as a 'terribly British affair; like amateur dramatics on a Broadway stage",

Well, it is the Open University - the Am-Dram of British Academia

He said considering an OU astrophysics course

Milton Keynes....at least some of the fashions are back.
Redpeck are you posting from Boston MA or Boston Lincs?

What's with the Boston query oetzi, I'm afraid you're too subtle for me