There is no Martian curse.Your future missions will be assured of success - if you honour the Gods.The Americans learnt this the hard way.

I reemember that last screw up.

Clinton phoned Canberra to warn them that there was a satellite predicted to impact on them - but it was actually NZ. Clinton didn't know the difference!!!

Everyone here pretty much panicked - as Pu328 is lethal. People were not happy. We still do not know officially where it landed.
NZ has become the dumping ground zone for satellite debris, and it is starting to piss people off.

The stranding of PHOBOS-GRUNT in Earth Orbit could be an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the need for international space cooperation to perform space rescues:  The US has invested in the development of the Boeing X-37B - a robotic space shuttle with a cargo bay large enough for spare parts to repair PHOBOS-GRUNT on orbit.  With a little imagination, and sincere cooperation to assist, the US and Russia can still show what cooperation can do together.  Roscosmos should put out a call to President Obama, NASA, and the US Air Force for international assistance to save Phobos-Grunt to send it to Mars and/or put it into a parking orbit for future retrieval, because this is an opportunity to show what is possible when there is courage, faith, and good will among all people.

There is no possibility whatsoever that the prediction "The date predicted for its landfall is November 26." will come about. Decay will occur most likely in December 2011 or even as late as January 2012.

Though I am not against exploring Phobos, it is interesting to note that the current priorities of most of the space agencies (Nasa, Roscosmos, EU, and Chinese) have one common point: Abstaining to launch manned Moon missions by any way!!

Given the present technology level all space nations are surely able to have sent man on the Moon in terms of two years. For example, US could do that for $3-5 billion if a private company would be contracted instead of NASA. Let alone if that would be a joint project of several nations. But, instead, all the space players set goals yet further from Earth, like Mars, Phobos, Jupiter (Cassini) sending the robotic crafts all around. Going back to the Moon would create a plentiful of new technologies, and even a lot of new industries, not to mention hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of new jobs. Is there a better way to get out from the global economic downturn?

Or. maybe, the rumors around Apollo conspiracy theorists, that Americans were sort of banned to get back to the Moon, were correct?

"In 1996, yet another mission to Mars ended with the craft splashing into the Pacific."   R ussian officials keep saying that, but the preponderence of evidence, including from groud eyewitnesses, is that the probe [and its heat-shielded plutonium batteries] fell to Earth in Bolivia. But for convenience  [and with cooperation from the Clinton White House], Moscow claimed otherwise, neve r searched for debris or warned locals. The distrust created by that cover-up will now return to poison public opinion towards official assurances of THIS debacle, and the current Roskosmos policy of 'say nothing' only encourages such distrust.