Leicester, the Beagle has Landed (JimPooley, /.)

While the world waits to see if the Beagle Mars Lander successfully touches down on the red planet, ponder this: Would an American space mission include art by Damien Hirst, or play a track by Blur to signify its successful landing?

[Fox News must have finally won its battle with my perception of reality, because I'm going to abruptly segue from this neat British effort to America's War on Terror™.]

In the long run, I hope that America's unending, post-9/11 fear -- which I don't see subsiding any time soon -- doesn't squelch our creativity to the point of where American scientists, American artists, and American politicians would be too humorless to send up a Mars probe that had some artsy knick-knacks on it.