Rush Hour on Mars

Life on Mars — it is an earthling's fantasy as old as Eldorado or the Holy Grail. And yet mankind may be on the brink of actually proving whether there is, or ever has been, life on the Red Planet. This spring three spacecraft are scheduled to take off for Mars. But in the greatest challenge to the primacy of the U.S. space program since Sputnik, the honor of confirming life on Mars is not expected to fall to some brash NASA spacecraft, but to a quirky British-built pod assembled by a shaggy-haired English egghead.

The British space program hasn't had a leading role since James Bond went into orbit in Moonraker. But in June a small, unmanned pod named Beagle 2 (after Charles Darwin's famous ship) has a chance to change all that. Masterminded by Professor Colin Pillinger, an eccentric and exuberant planetary scientist at Britain's remote learning Open University, the Beagle is on track to beat the mighty NASA program, which is set to send its next Mars probe at about the same time. If successful, Beagle will be one of the most astonishing recent developments in the space race.

With $60 million funding from public and private sources, Pillinger, 59, and his team of hundreds of scientists, engineers and programmers have managed to plan, produce and finance a 34-kg suitcase-sized probe virtually from scratch. There is more than a hint of national pride in his pitch. "We Europeans should not have our noses pressed against the window," says Pillinger, the author of over 260 astronomy papers and keeper of 21 superannuated dairy cows on his Cambridgeshire farm. "Our public deserves a show, like the American public has enjoyed for the past three decades."

It seems as if everyone is trying to get in on that show; Beagle is one of five spacecraft heading to Mars next year. Pillinger's pod will hitch a ride on the $200 million European Space Agency's Mars Express mission, which will also launch a satellite around the planet. Next comes the $650 million NASA Mars Exploration project, which is actually two separate rover missions. And around the same time, Japan's $132 million Nozomi orbiter will arrive to test the Martian atmosphere.

Those price tags are modest, compared to the $100 billion price tag estimated for the International Space Station. But even so, why does the world need three missions carrying five craft to Mars? Surely the scientific community would lower its costs if it pooled money, brainpower and technology in a group effort. Alas, the glory of being the first to bring back data about life on Mars defies financial logic. As Pillinger says, "There cannot be a human in the world who has not looked at the stars in the night sky and thought, 'Are we alone?' Some say it would be like the moment in the 16th century when Copernicus discovered that we revolved around the sun, not the sun round us. But I think this will be bigger."