http://newsbiscuit.com/forum/topic.php?id=46439 The NewsBiscuit Community en-US Fri, 24 May 2013 23:33:47 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 q http://newsbiscuit.com/forum/search.php http://newsbiscuit.com/forum/topic.php?id=46439#post-134154 Thu, 09 Aug 2012 13:09:04 +0000 Nowherefast 134154@http://newsbiscuit.com/forum/ <p>Thank you Mr dvo sir :) </p> http://newsbiscuit.com/forum/topic.php?id=46439#post-134145 Thu, 09 Aug 2012 11:33:10 +0000 dvo4fun 134145@http://newsbiscuit.com/forum/ <p>Pruned down to NiB length but nice work mr fast </p> http://newsbiscuit.com/forum/topic.php?id=46439#post-134031 Wed, 08 Aug 2012 16:44:03 +0000 Nowherefast 134031@http://newsbiscuit.com/forum/ <p>LOL.. I feel vindicated how an attempt at cod satire/spoof piece ends up probably not being so far from the truth after all.. poor Prof Pillinger</p> <p><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/9461306/Nasas-Curiosity-rover-leaves-British-Beagle-2-scientist-feeling-beaten.html">Nasas Curiosity Rover Leaves British Beagle 2 Scientist Feeling Beaten</a></p> <p>I think the Telegraph picture editor was rubbing it in too.. The guy pointing says it all!!</p> <p><img src="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02301/mars2_2301410c.jpg"><br /> <strong><em>The massive Nasa team behind Curiosity "annoyed" Professor<br /> Pillinger, who worked with a much smaller team on Beagle </em></strong> </p> http://newsbiscuit.com/forum/topic.php?id=46439#post-133668 Mon, 06 Aug 2012 13:32:30 +0000 Psycadelic Squirrel 133668@http://newsbiscuit.com/forum/ <p>I liked it. You don't see so many brass levers and knockers these days... especially the knockers </p> http://newsbiscuit.com/forum/topic.php?id=46439#post-133666 Mon, 06 Aug 2012 13:25:34 +0000 Nowherefast 133666@http://newsbiscuit.com/forum/ <p>Well it makes a change from the Olympics... I just hope some of the references aren't too obscure. Dragged Amazing Stories from somewhere in he dark recesses of my memory. My dad used to subscribe to it when I was a kid. </p> http://newsbiscuit.com/forum/topic.php?id=46439#post-133627 Mon, 06 Aug 2012 09:03:58 +0000 Nowherefast 133627@http://newsbiscuit.com/forum/ <p>"It's a bloody miracle it made it down in one piece!" was the informed assessment of British contraption aficionado William Heath Robinson on the landing of NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover this morning.</p> <p>"All the elements were in place for a spectacular and complicated bit of gadgetry but I was watching it all live on SKY and the only piece of knotted string in evidence was the mission controllers shoe lace! And where were the oversized ornate polished wood and brass levers? There were two hundred plus people in that control room and not a hint that a single one of them was on standby with the beeswax and Brasso! Over all I think they really missed a trick. I mean the bit where they lowered the rover the last few feet from a hovering rocket powered sky crane was ok, it could have done with some chap in tweeds and a deerstalker back on earth winding a big wheel to control the winch, but at least the skycrane wouldn't have looked out of place on the front cover of 'Amazing Stories'. Believe me I know what I'm talking about!"</p> <p>Indeed he should, for Mr Heath Robinson had been employed as a consultant on Professor Colin Pillinger's failed Beagle 2 Mars Explorer in 2003. Reflecting on his Beagle 2 experience Heath Robinson insisted that the abortive British attempt to get it's finger in the planetary exploration pie wasn't misplaced. </p> <p>"Look, that should have worked." he said. " Everything was on track for a bit of classic British 'make do and mend',we'd got an eccentric lead scientist, in the form of Colin with his unlikely sideburns and west country accent, we'd rented a shed on some allotments near the Open University campus in Milton Keynes and one of Colin's post-grad students had brought in some bits from an old Marconi valve radiogram he'd found in his Grandad's attic. With the Radio Spares catalogue and a couple of rolls of Sellotape provided by the UK Space Agency we were pretty much sorted. It was once the media got wind it all started to go down the tubes! Colin got carried away and went all contemporary with the design. First he gets Damien Hurst involved painting some dots on Beagle. Beagle! By the time he'd finished it looked more like a bloody Dalmatian! Then he roped in that rock band Blur to record the mission call sign. I warned him that he was losing the plot, that if he dropped the steampunk brass porthole, gramophone horn and obvious rivets, to make way for the demands of modern technology and popular culture, it would end in tears: But no, Colin knew best and insisted that sleek and streamlined was the way to go. Boy was he ever wrong. Where's Beagle now eh? I'll tell you where it is.. It's scattered over the Martian landscape in more sodding pieces than a flatpack IKEA sideboard!That's where it is!"</p> <p>As he excused himself to attend an urgent troubleshooting meeting with Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic design team Mr Heath Robinson left us with his parting thought: "NASA should think themselves lucky, they might have got away with it this time but if they keep putting science and precision engineering over sellotape, string and chewing gum in astro-engineering then sooner or later they're going to come down to earth, or wherever they happen to be, with one hell of a bang I can tell you"</p> <p>Asked to comment on NASA's successful Mars Curiosity Rover landing, and Mr Heath Robinson's contribution to the Beagle 2 project, Professor Pillinger shook his head, wiped away a tear and sighed wistfully. </p>