The US Mars Rover has landed and is jabbering back at ya from the Martian surface. Maybe Marvin shot up the ESA's Beagle II probe and had mercy on the Rover; while he eventually wants to destroy Earth, he may have a soft spot for the US.
Seriously, this gives NASA a victory when it could use one. JPL generally delivers the goods, while our manned program leaves a bit to be desired.
Memory may be short on this, but JPL does about as badly as anyone else. They've also had Mars landers poop out (and have had about the same reaction as the Europeans, "It's probably just a malfunction in the antenna, and we'll hear from it soon," etc. etc.)
Living near Pasadena, I hear that JPL people go in to local hobby shops to buy the bits of brass, model airplane parts, etc., that go into the spacecraft. The multi-billion dollar budgets sometimes seem to boil down to a 98-cent piece of aluminum tube.
Posted by: John Bruce | January 04, 2004 at 11:56 AM