Which brings us to the abortive mission this week to the land of little green men. Scientists with equipment on both Mars-96, which crashed into the Pacific on Monday, and the Ariane 5 rocket, which exploded in June bringing to an end the Cluster space mission, will be reminded of the Lady Bracknell quote: "To lose one probe may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness." Fingers crossed for the next mission, since to lose three looks like penury.