British planetary scientist Professor Colin Pillinger, a former ESA principal investigator, died on May 7th. He suffered a brain haemorrhage at his home in Cambridge and died in hospital.
Pillinger, who was awarded the CBE in 2003, was an unconventional scientist who understood the value of showmanship to sell big ideas to the public.
The Open University scientist was best known as the driving force behind Beagle-2, the lander for ESA’s Mars Express.
“Colin had the rare gift of being able to make things that were complicated and ambitious seem simple and achievable. We need more scientists like that. He was unique, and I will miss him,” said Alex James of Blur.
Pillinger enlisted Blur to write a song to be Beagle 2’s call sign back home. It was to be broadcast as soon as Beagle 2 began work on the surface of Mars. He also persuaded the artist Damien Hirst to provide a spot painting to use in calibrating the spacecraft’s camera.
The Beagle 2 mission gripped the nation over Christmas 2003 with its audacious attempt to land safely on the red planet’s surface, but its poignant silence on Christmas Day signalled that the project had ultimately failed.
In other respects, though, the mission was a success.
Beagle 2 also caused a sea change in attitude towards space in the UK. As the Guardian’s former science editor Tim Radford wrote in a review of Pillinger’s book My Life on Mars, it put the planet “on the map for millions”.
“The publicity it created was a wakeup call. Before that the UK was not dramatically active in the space business. But after the Beagle mission, I had the impression that the UK was waking up and now it is much more active in space. That in itself is a highly valuable and very good outcome of Colin’s efforts. He was a brilliant scientist, and a very strong leader and manager,” said Roland Trautner, who was the European Space Agency (ESA)’s payload manager on Beagle 2.
Beagle 2 was carried through space by Mars Express, which is still orbiting the planet.
Pillinger also proposed the Ptolemy experiment on ESA’s Rosetta lander, Philae, which is just months away from landing on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.
“Colin was a unique and brilliant scientist, and always took immense pleasure in his work,” says Alvaro Giménez, ESA’s Director of Science and Robotic Exploration.
“His determination and passion for the exploration of space and Mars in particular never waned, and captured the imagination of the general public.
“He is also the reason that many of our ESA scientists became interested in pursuing careers in planetary exploration, and he will be sorely missed.”
Pillinger, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2005, began his career at NASA, analysing samples of moon rock on the Apollo programme.
He gained a PhD in chemistry from the University of Wales (University College, Swansea) before becoming a research fellow at Cambridge University. An asteroid discovered on 7 April 2000 was named after him.
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