Commence official interplanetary exploration  

Still no word from Beagle 2, but the Spirit rover is apparently down safely. Now to find that water!

If all the botched missions to Mars in recent years seem frustrating, check out this history of disastrous missions to Venus by the Soviet planetary exploration program. Unable to achieve the necessary trajectory? Ultimately though, even the Soviets were pretty successful.

MORE: Matt Yglesias is concerned that we're wasting our time with exploration of outer space. But the missions to Mars he seems to disapprove of are tremendously important! There are of course the usual pragmatic reasons for space exploration - technological advancement, scientific discovery... but if you're at all interested in the place human beings occupy in the universe (and I would expect Matt to be, with his philosophy degree) then the questions these particular missions get at are absolutely pivotal. If these missions turn up evidence of life, past or present, our understanding of the universe and our place in it will be completely transformed.