Watch the Skies !

[OFSO]

The European Space Agency lost contact with the latest Mars lander one minute before it was due to land on the surface of the planet Mars today.

Now I am not making this up but we have sent probes or spacecraft to most of the nearer planets in our solar system, and the number of probes lost just as they reached Mars or landed on Mars exceeds every other planetary mission sent to every other planet in total. To put it simply, based on exploration of our solar system since 1970, a mission sent to any planet except Mars has an almost 100% chance of success: a mission sent to the planet Mars has an 80% chance of failure.

Draw your own conclusions ! (H. G. Wells would have done...oh, he did.)

[limeygal]

I know I have some tin foil somewhere. . .

[Slasher]

I think NASA never succeeded in landing a probe on Venus whereas the Russkis did with their Venera landers.

Venus is one hell of a nasty place.