Certainly this was no accident. It just comes to prove that Americans have contact with alien civilizations and established a deal with them. Martians, as it seems.

Europe's probe would reveal the existence of life on Mars, and America would not tolerate that. It wants the exclusive of Martian knowledge, so no other nation can come into contact with them.

If he had said China instead of America then I might have taken him more seriously. As it stands I can only imagine that he's jealous of our large American... space rockets.

Some space program budget info (just because...):

NASA budget: $40 billion
China: $11 billion
Russia: $9 billion
[reference]

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_government_space_agencies ]ESA: € 5 billion [/url]

Considering India managed to send a spacecraft to Mars for just $74 million, it's countries like India, Russia and China that will be NASA's main competition in the future.

Seriously now? The orbiter just achieved orbit insertion, still has the aerobraking maneuvers which will take it to the actual planned orbit and then a seven-year planned mission ahead of it, and the lander crashed and (possibly) burned, yet ESA's Director General comes out with a blog post claiming the mission is 96% successful??? *baffled*

That's what I tell myself every time I play Kerbal Space Program

I prefer think of it as a "Crater Placement Program".

I wonder if ESA still uses this old navigation software.

Next time sometimes tells you it's a success at 96%, remember to ask which percents.

I thought exactly at that XD

Some of the equipment hit the red planet and some of the equipment did not. The one that did hit, hit it hard. But it did scream some numbers at the part that did not, so they got some victory points for that. All in all, a minor victory fot the blue planet.

I just saw Mars when I went out to walk one of the dogs now.

I would imagine most people in North America have a pretty good view of it right now.

What I can't fathom is being able to travel to something that to the naked eye is a fucking speck of light! ;P Boggles the mind and makes me go cross-eyed.

AND : failing a couple of kilometers, like 5 seconds, before arriving !

Getting there is the easier part, got as far as Pluto after all (talking specific targets, not where the Voyagers are) and NH has another even more distant destination on its route. It's stopping that's harder, even in orbit. Was managed as far as Saturn though.

I don't know if it was legit, but a few (2 or 1, was it...) years ago, there was an online survey for you to ask participation to the future manned mission to mars, the one with the group going permanently to stay there for the rest of their lives with everything provided for free. Obviously, due to the hell people give me here, i immediately filled that form. Later on they informed me a multitude of people had the same idea and even required of me a token payment of (5-10, was it...) dollars. This didn't sit very well with me and all, because what the hell "everything is going to be provided for you to free, but just pay online 10 bucks and sit there, sucker"?

I don't know. Deep down i am actually sad, besides angry, that this thing didn't make it there. But i have a tendency to display only that i am angry. Especially since they didn't pick ME to go for permanent vacation there. No one picks me. Damn and they even chose a chinese girl for the group of participants, damn, i always wanted a chinese gf to go on vacation with... :'(