>> Maybe the way to reliably get to mars is to have a few dozen
>> layers of air bags that can dissipate energy as they burst.
>
>That's exactly what Beagle 2 used!  There's no evidence that the
>airbags idea failed, of course, but *something* went wrong...

However I believe the current suspicion is that the airbags did fail. The
rumour that I get within the lab is that the original design of airbags
failed in the test drop, and so another airbag was designed, but never
tested. also as a result of the extra weight incurred in the redesigned
airbags, some 3kg had to be lost else where on Beagle2.

>> KISS seems to be working the best on Mars.
>
>Well we seem to have a 33% failure rate at the moment...
>
>Incidentally, why are there so many Mars missions arriving there
>all at once?  Is there some astronomical-geometry that favours it?

Probably because mars has been the closest to earth for some 28,000 years,
so the travel time is shortest, and there is probably an advantage in signal
strengths as well.

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