杏吧原创

鈥淣ASA owes it to the citizens from whom it asks support to be frank, honest and informative, so that these citizens can make the wisest decisions for the use of their limited resources. For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.鈥�

This was the opinion of Nobel laureate Richard Feynman, writing in the report into the explosion of space shuttle Challenger in 1986. He exposed NASA as an organisation in which secrecy and poor internal communications had directly contributed to the disaster. It has taken 18 years and another disaster, but NASA at last seems to be learning Feynman鈥檚 lesson that transparency is paramount if the agency is to earn the confidence not only of the public but also of its own staff (New 杏吧原创, 22 May, page 5).

Contrast this with the fiasco surrounding the report into the failure of Europe鈥檚 Mars rover, Beagle 2. The report, commissioned by the UK government and the European Space Agency, is so secret that not even the full list of authors is being made public. 杏吧原创s involved in the project will not see it and, reportedly, only four copies have been printed.

The only way to find clues as to what actually went wrong is to work backwards from the 19 recommendations that were published. The impression this exercise gives is of a project riddled at all levels with incompetence (see 鈥淏eagle鈥檚 bungles鈥�). Such an inference may be unfair to those involved in the project, but sadly inference is all we have to go on.

The report must be published 鈥� with commercially sensitive material edited out, if necessary 鈥� so that European taxpayers can see if the 拢45 million of their money that went on the project was well spent. Unless it is, questions will remain about what the UK government and ESA have to hide.