Colin Pillinger, who has died aged 70 after suffering a brain haemorrhage, is widely known as the man who tried to land Britain on Marsg for a Beagle 3.
Beagle 2 was an opportunist attempt, sketched initially on the back of a beer mat, to answer a profound scientific question about life on another planet. The question remains open, and the technology invested in Beagle 2 still has to be tested on Mars. Pillinger put his energy and his formidable personality into making the project happen in spite of, rather than with help from, the British and European space bureaucracy.
In the course of it he became one of Britain’s best-known scientists.
