Beagle 2 -- the original Beagle was the ship that took Darwin to the Galapagos. Prof Pillinger's Clean Room where they put B2 together is just around the corner from my little room at the Open University. We've all stopped holding our breath, but we've still got our fingers crossed.

I case you didn't know, there are several miracles of miniaturistaion on board Beagle 2. F'rinstance ... a mass spectrometer was a thing the size of a sideboard (the furniture sort, not the Prof P type!) that would require a team of big lads/girls and a transit van to move around, and a bunch of technicians to set it up and operate it when you got there. Now a doctor can put one in his black bag and do tests at the patient's bedside ... any physicists who fancy working at home or on the train can now do so easily. There's a load of other stuff in there too, all of which would fit easily in your briefcase.

And there ought to be some benefit to us from sending the works of Blur and Damien Hurst into space ...

Steve