A series of plaques has been unveiled across the UK to celebrate the country's first spacecraft to reach another planet. Yet the mastermind behind Beagle 2 was never your typical rocket scientist. With his mutton-chop sideburns, West Country accent and infectious enthusiasm, Professor Colin Pillinger persuaded politicians, pop stars and the public to support what had seemed impossible: a British mission to Mars.
For years the story of this maverick scientist was synonymous with ambitious British failure. So what changed to make it worthy of nationwide celebration? Pillinger was born in Kingswood near Bristol and completed his degree at Swansea University.
He gained international recognition for his lunar research before moving to Cambridge University, where he analysed meteorites found in Antarctica that were believed to have come from Mars. By the 1980s, he had become one of the founders of the Planetary and Space Sciences Research Institute at The Open University in Milton Keynes. It was here he conceived the idea of sending a lander, named Beagle 2 by his wife, to Mars, where it could study the red planet directly for signs of life.
Space exploration was dominated by international superpowers and agencies such as Nasa, which had the funding for such expensive work. Britain had no dedicated space agency, so Pillinger proposed that Beagle 2 hitch a ride aboard Mars Express, a European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft already scheduled to travel to the planet. When the ride was approved in 1999, the ESA did not guarantee funding or wider support for the project.
The scientist believed that capturing the public's imagination would help attract financial backing. Pallab Ghosh, the BBC's science correspondent, recalled being sceptical when he was sent to meet a "bloke in Milton Keynes who is sending a spaceship to Mars". Those doubts deepened when Pillinger placed a model of Beagle 2 on the lawn.
According to Ghosh, it "did not look much like a spaceship". On another occasion, Pillinger loaded a Beagle 2 replica into a supermarket trolley and wheeled it around The Open University's car park, demonstrating its compact size to cameras. The footage was later ridiculed on Have I Got News for You, ensuring it reached an even wider audience.
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