{"id":56476,"title":"The Man Who Almost Reached Mars","description":"Toby Jones will play Colin Pillinger, creator of the Beagle 2 Mars Lander in the upcoming film Mars Express directed by Mackenzie Crook","content":"

Colin Pillinger, Beagle 2, and why their story deserves to be told on the big screen<\/strong><\/p>

\"TobyOn Christmas Day 2003, a team of British scientists gathered around their equipment and waited. Beagle 2 - a lander the size of a bicycle wheel, built on a shoestring budget, hitching a ride on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter - was supposed to open its solar panels on the Martian surface and sing. Not metaphorically; Pillinger had enlisted Blur to write the call sign that Beagle 2 would transmit back to Earth to confirm it had landed. He had persuaded Damien Hirst to contribute a spot painting for the camera calibration target. This was a Mars mission that felt unmistakably British. The signal never came.<\/p>

The Professor with Mutton Chops and a Dream<\/strong><\/p>

Colin Pillinger was born in Bristol in 1943, and made more than a thousand contributions to scientific literature while also becoming one of Britain's foremost science communicators. His face - framed by extraordinary sideburns that seemed to belong to a Victorian naturalist - became familiar to anyone who watched the news in the early 2000s. He was the kind of scientist who appeared on Top Gear. He had form.<\/p>

At the time of Beagle 2, Pillinger was Gresham Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College, a position once held by Sir Christopher Wren, and Professor of Interplanetary Science at the Open University. He had worked on NASA's Apollo programme, analysing rocks brought back from the Moon. This was not a crank. This was a serious scientist who happened to believe, with infectious conviction, that Britain should go and look for life on Mars.<\/p>

A Mission Built on Ingenuity and Nerve<\/strong><\/p>

In the project's preliminary stages, Pillinger and his wife Judith toured conferences looking for support. It was Judith who came up with the name: Beagle 2, after HMS Beagle, the ship that took Charles Darwin on his voyage around the world. Like its namesake, it would go searching for signs of life.<\/p>

The constraints were extraordinary. The UK government signed off on around \u00a345 million for the whole mission, compared to the nearly $3 billion NASA allocated for the Perseverance rover two decades later. The Mars Express orbiter could only accommodate a few extra kilograms of weight, seriously restricting the size of Beagle 2, and as weight allowances continued to reduce, the lander's design continued to change, it had limited backup components, meaning every system had to function correctly for the mission to succeed.<\/p>

Pillinger's response to these constraints was characteristic: he simply refused to be limited by them. He found engineers willing to work at cost, miniaturised instruments that had no business fitting in the available space, and crucially he understood something that most scientists never grasp; that public imagination is a resource. If enough people cared, the money would follow. And to make people care, you needed more than press releases. You needed Blur. You needed Damien Hirst.<\/p>

The Britpop Mars Mission<\/strong><\/p>

The story of how Pillinger recruited Britain's art world to his cause is one of the most joyously improbable sub-plots in British space history.<\/p>

Blur drummer Dave Rowntree and bassist Alex James were already part of Beagle 2 when Pillinger sat down with them in one of the Open University's lecture theatres. He pulled a little plastic container from his pocket with a small rock in it. \"You know what that is?\" he said. \"That's a piece of Mars.\"<\/p>

The pitch escalated from there. Pillinger asked whether Alex and Dave might persuade the rest of the band to write a call sign for the lander. If Beagle 2 made it to Mars and all the systems were working, the first thing it would do was beam this signal back to Earth. They'd get to play the first gig on Mars. It was, Rowntree recalled, an easy sell.<\/p>

Then came Hirst. In the spring of 1999, Pillinger happened to watch a TV programme featuring Damien Hirst. Seeing one of his spot paintings, the idea developed that the standard calibration target required by instruments working remotely could be replaced with something far more aesthetically interesting, and yet do exactly the same job. Alex James and Hirst were already friends from their student days, so the connection was straightforward. Pillinger said to Rowntree: \"Why doesn't Damien do a spot painting and that can be the calibration image for the lander's cameras? Then Damien will have sent the first artwork to Mars.\"<\/p>

Hirst recalled Pillinger's approach with characteristic directness: \"He said a spot painting would work really well for this thing we need. He only wanted a dot painting so I didn't really have a lot of leeway. I had to make a decision whether to let him have one or not.\" He let him have one.<\/p>

The technical requirements were surprisingly demanding. The spots were applied with pigment that could withstand the rigours of space flight, including cobalt and manganese; geologically interesting trace elements. By dispersing the pigment powder in sealant, the spots acquired a relief texture, giving an excellent way for the depth of field of the microscope to be tested. The aluminium plate was left unpolished to provide a wealth of microscopic texture for the cameras to focus on.It was a genuine work of art that was also a genuine scientific instrument.<\/p>

There's something very Pillinger about all of this. He didn't court Blur and Hirst for the publicity alone, though the publicity was real and valuable. He genuinely seemed to believe that science and art belonged in the same conversation, that the excitement of looking for life on another planet was something everyone should feel entitled to share. As Hirst put it at the time: \"The spot painting lends itself to this project and as an artist all the things you make you want to be useful on some level.\"<\/p>

A recording by Blur was also set to play on repeat for 180 days once the lander began operations. Beagle 2 would have serenaded the Martian plains with Britpop for the duration of its mission. It is one of the great might-have-beens of British cultural history.<\/p>

Silence<\/strong><\/p>

On 2 June 2003, Beagle 2 launched from Kazakhstan aboard ESA's Mars Express. It was successfully deployed from the orbiter on 19 December. Christmas Day was landing day.<\/p>

The Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank listened. Mars Express listened. Nothing came back. Numerous attempts were made to contact the spacecraft, but in February 2004 Beagle 2 was declared lost. For over a decade, its fate was unknown. Then, on 16 January 2015, more than eleven years after its loss, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter located the lander on the surface of Isidis Planitia, about 5km from its planned landing zone. The images told a bittersweet story: the probe had landed safely and begun its operations, deploying some of its solar panels, but two of the four had failed to open, trapping the communications antenna beneath them and rendering the lander permanently silent.<\/p>

Beagle 2 had made it. It had touched down on Mars on Christmas Day. It just couldn't tell anyone. Hirst's spot painting was there. Blur's call sign was loaded and ready. The first gig on Mars never played.<\/p>

When the news broke, Hirst said: \"I can't believe Beagle 2 has been out there all this time and I have a painting on Mars. It makes me think that Colin must be looking down on us smiling and still have a hand in it.\"<\/p>

Team members expressed mixed feelings: joy at finally knowing what had happened; regret that the mission came so agonisingly close to success; and deep sadness that Pillinger, who had died on 7 May 2014, never learned the fate of his spacecraft. He missed the answer by eight months.<\/p>

Judith Pillinger's response was characteristically precise. She said Colin would have compared Beagle 2 to \"hitting the crossbar rather than missing the goal completely\" and that had he known how close they came, he would certainly have been campaigning to \"tap in the rebound\" with a Beagle 3.<\/p>

Now, a Film<\/strong><\/p>

Finally, rightly, this story is coming to cinema. Mackenzie Crook will make his feature directorial debut with Mars Express (working title), with his Detectorists co-star Toby Jones attached to lead. (Screen Daily) The project is produced by Big Talk Studios and Altitude, developed with BBC Film, and is based on a script by Joe Bone, adapted from Colin Pillinger's own memoir, My Life on Mars: The Beagle 2 Diaries<\/em>.<\/p>

I have a signed copy of that book, and it reads exactly as you'd expect Pillinger to write: determined, digressive, funny, indignant in the right places, and shot through with the kind of enthusiasm that makes you want to ring your MP and demand Britain build another lander immediately. The Blur and Hirst passages are among the best; you can feel Pillinger's delight at having pulled it off, at having made space science feel like something that belonged to all of British life, not just the scientific establishment.<\/p>

Crook\u2019s casting of Jones feels inspired. Their work together on Detectorists - that perfectly calibrated study of quiet obsession, friendship, and the things ordinary people care about with extraordinary intensity - is exactly the right emotional register for this material. Pillinger's story isn't really about space. It's about belief. About what happens when someone refuses to accept that something is impossible, scrapes together the resources, drags in collaborators, wrangles artists and rock bands and sceptical bureaucrats, and makes the thing happen anyway.<\/p>

The film is due to shoot later this year, against a soundtrack of Britpop classics which is not a quirky flourish but period-accurate mood. Beagle 2 was a product of Cool Britannia's strange, confident moment: the same cultural atmosphere that produced Blur's albums, Damien Hirst's shark in formaldehyde, and a bone-deep belief that Britain could do something audacious and weird on the world stage. The Britpop soundtrack is the whole thesis.<\/p>

Why It Matters<\/strong><\/p>

The Beagle 2 story sits in an odd place in national memory; filed under failure, quietly rehabilitated as something far more complicated. A spacecraft that reached Mars. A scientist who died not knowing. A discovery that came too late, but came.<\/p>

Somewhere on the plains of Isidis Planitia, two of four petals open, Damien Hirst's spot painting is sitting in the Martian dust. Blur's call sign is loaded and unplayed. The UK is in the history books as the third country to land a spacecraft on another planet.<\/p>

Colin Pillinger knew it would work. He just couldn't prove it in time. Here's a t-shirt I created to celebrate his work<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>

Mars Express (a working title as there is already a film of that name) is in development with Big Talk Studios and Altitude, directed by Mackenzie Crook, starring Toby Jones. Script by Joe Bone, based on Colin Pillinger's My Life on Mars: The Beagle 2 Diaries.<\/em><\/p>","urlTitle":"the-man-who-almost-reached-mars","url":"\/blog\/the-man-who-almost-reached-mars\/","editListUrl":"\/my-blogs","editUrl":"\/my-blogs\/edit\/the-man-who-almost-reached-mars\/","fullUrl":"https:\/\/overthehilltees.com\/blog\/the-man-who-almost-reached-mars\/","featured":false,"published":true,"showOnSitemap":true,"hidden":false,"visibility":null,"createdAt":1779021565,"updatedAt":1779027948,"publishedAt":1779027947,"lastReadAt":null,"division":{"id":278962,"name":"Over The Hill"},"tags":[],"metaImage":{"original":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/iffe2ddlb4fd7wvz2scav0fqzqir95dtex3yspgkvjswa1un.png","thumbnail":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/iffe2ddlb4fd7wvz2scav0fqzqir95dtex3yspgkvjswa1un.png.jpg?w=1140&h=855","banner":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/iffe2ddlb4fd7wvz2scav0fqzqir95dtex3yspgkvjswa1un.png.jpg?w=1920&h=1440"},"metaTitle":"","metaDescription":"","keyPhraseCampaignId":null,"series":[],"similarReads":[{"id":53494,"title":"From Solo Sailing to Circular Economy: Ellen MacArthur's Remarkable Journey","url":"\/blog\/circular-economies-and-why-we-want-to-be-part-of-them\/","urlTitle":"circular-economies-and-why-we-want-to-be-part-of-them","division":278962,"description":"At age 28, Dame Ellen MacArthur had already achieved what most sailors only dream of: breaking the world record for the fastest solo circumnavigation of the globe. But it was during those 71 days alone at sea that she had an epiphany that would chart an entirely new course for her life's work - the circular economy","published":true,"metaImage":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/siprgriaj8totqasxia5bfufpp3bh44wijm0yckcu9iwiolt.jpeg.jpg?w=1140&h=855","banner":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/siprgriaj8totqasxia5bfufpp3bh44wijm0yckcu9iwiolt.jpeg.jpg?w=1920&h=1440"},"hidden":0},{"id":53468,"title":"The Roots of Detectorists","url":"\/blog\/the-roots-of-detectorists\/","urlTitle":"the-roots-of-detectorists","division":278962,"description":"\"I've been interested in what it means to be English ever since I did Jez Butterworth's play Jerusalem. It was all about rural England and the state of the nation; our mythology and folklore. We delved deeply into those subjects in rehearsal, and it sparked a fascination in me, one that possibly had always been there, underneath","published":true,"metaImage":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/4z5ozwldoqqt6tq7uhfholhuouaomcvdy76mzc5nai7y8dkl.png.jpg?w=1140&h=855","banner":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/4z5ozwldoqqt6tq7uhfholhuouaomcvdy76mzc5nai7y8dkl.png.jpg?w=1920&h=1440"},"hidden":0},{"id":31644,"title":"Visual Storytelling Through the Ages: From Palaeolithic Cave Paintings to Modern T-Shirt Designs","url":"\/blog\/visual-storytelling-through-the-ages-from-palaeolithic-cave-paintings-to-modern-t-shirt-designs\/","urlTitle":"visual-storytelling-through-the-ages-from-palaeolithic-cave-paintings-to-modern-t-shirt-designs","division":278962,"description":"Visual storytelling is an ancient and enduring form of human expression, with its roots tracing back to the dawn of civilization. From the enigmatic Palaeolithic cave paintings of Lascaux to the modern t-shirt designs that adorn our chests today, humans have used visuals to communicate, share narratives, and leave lasting imprints on the annals of history. In this exploration, we embark on a journey through time, unraveling the captivating evolution of visual storytelling","published":true,"metaImage":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/kdvy9v7dfbjzbs2fnt8ut2icqr41mguqdti1lxrtwpyuepgf.jpeg.jpg?w=1140&h=855","banner":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/kdvy9v7dfbjzbs2fnt8ut2icqr41mguqdti1lxrtwpyuepgf.jpeg.jpg?w=1920&h=1440"},"hidden":0}],"labels":[]}