Beagle would have been able to sample much more directly with a smaller degree of error, but crashed.
I heard on the radio earlier that Beagle had ammonia in it's airbags. Admittedly not enough to spread out and produce the results that have been measured, but still, how stupid was that? Introduce a chemical compound that would possibly otherwise not exist where you are then gonna do tests to see what evidence there is of life. Hmm, maybe the evidence we brought with us? :-)
Ahh well, back to the drawing board. Beagle was a good effort, I'm looking forward to Europes next attempt.
-zudo
