Its implications are as far reaching and awe inspiring
as can be imagined
President
Bill Clinton August 1996 speaking from the White House lawn
following NASA's report of evidence of the remains of life
in a martian meteorite..
With a landed mass of 33.2kg, Beagle 2 represents the most ambitious
science payload to systems mass ratio ever attempted. Almost
a third of the payload will carry out various types of analysis
or be used to manipulate and collect samples for study on the
surface of Mars.