So far, the scorecard for missions to Mars reads attempts 40,
successes 14. Well over 60 percent of Earth missions to Mars
have failed, ever since the pioneering efforts of the former
Soviet Union in the 1960s and including Britain's high-profile
Beagle 2 space probe. As Nasa's latest mission to Mars heads
closer to the Red Planet, the head of Nasa's Mars Exploration
Program, Doug McCuistion, acknowledged Tuesday that many things
could still go wrong before its scheduled August 6 landing date.
The one thing that worries him most is if the spacecraft's heat
shield will detach as planned when the US Mars Science
Laboratory mission sets down a large, mobile laboratory on Mars,
the rover Curiosity. "If you look at the scorecard, Earth is
doing less than 50 percent; less than 50 percent of Earth's
missions to Mars have been successful," McCuistion, a former US
fighter pilot, said at the Farnborough Airshow south of London.
In the seven minutes before its planned touchdown, the US
spacecraft has a number of tasks i