Faces of the week

Our regular look at some of the faces which have made the news this week. Above are Colin Pillinger (main picture), with Donald Rumsfeld, Courteney Cox, David Bedford and Steve Irwin (clockwise from top left).

COLIN PILLINGER

For some reason, whenever the English parody a simple country bumpkin they put on a West Country accent, in much the same way as Americans adopt the Deep South dialect.

Take a west countryman with long unkempt hair, spectacles and grey mutton-chop sideburns and you want to shout "Ooh Ah" in that unkind, stereotypical way.

But laughter was the least emotion on show when the man in question, Colin Pillinger, received the news, with TV cameras watching, that the Mars Express orbiter had failed to make contact with Beagle 2.

Colin Pillinger with Beagle 2

One could almost feel the pain of his all-too transparent disappointment that the project he'd spent years planning and executing had almost certainly ended in failure.

"By making himself so obviously the front man for the project, one that he knew stood a good chance of failing, he bravely sacrificed his potential credibility should failure happen," says Daily Mail journalist Mike Hanlon who, for his book The Real Mars, due out later this year, has often consulted Colin Pillinger.

Professor Pillinger's eccentric appearance belies a man of considerable scientific ability and one without whose sheer bloodymindedness the Beagle 2 mission would not have got off the drawing board, let alone the launch pad.

The son of a gas-fitter, the Bristol-born Pillinger, now 60, was bright enough to become the first member of his family to go to university.

Family effort

He studied chemistry at Swansea which led to a PhD, and ran his own research team at Cambridge. At Bristol University, he first studied rocks from the moon, courtesy of the Apollo 11 mission.

TALKING POINT Colin Pillinger answers your questions - 1400GMT today Send a question

But it was his discovery of micro-organisms in a meteor that fell to Earth in 1995, suggesting proof of extra-terrestrial life, that fired his enthusiasm to send a probe to Mars.

He is currently professor of planetary research at the Open University. His wife Judith also works there as a microbiologist and did public relations work for the project. It was she who named the spacecraft Beagle after Charles Darwin's famous ship.

Colin Pillinger is no spaceship expert, yet he got a team together to come up with an ingenious all-British design.

The failure has been a bitter blow

He bullied and cajoled businessmen and politicians into raising the necessary funds. He got Damien Hirst to paint one of his "spots" used to calibrate the craft's equipment, and persuaded Alex James from Blur to write the call signal.

Unfortunately, that call signal has been impossible to summon. But not all, perhaps, is lost.

"Despite its seeming failure to land safely, Colin Pillinger has shown that you don't need to build huge objects to do clever science on Mars," says Hanlon.

Inevitably, there will be questions about whether the delivery system for Beagle 2 had sufficient back-up in the event of things going wrong. This would have raised the cost, of course.

In the meantime, Colin Pillinger can recover from his bitter blow in the comforting surroundings of his small Cambridgeshire farm where he keeps a herd of dairy cows.

The man whose work has focused on the search for life 250 million miles into space has his feet firmly on the ground.

According to the BBC Science correspondent, Sue Nelson, "You can't help liking a scientist who, when he takes the time to chat to you from home, is telling his many dogs to keep quiet in between giving you the lowdown on Beagle 2."

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Donald Rumsfeld US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has confirmed he and the military top brass are considering revamping the US military command structure in Iraq. One proposal is to appoint a new senior general to facilitate the security aspects of Iraq's transition towards self-rule. Mr Rumsfeld, who recently dismissed any thoughts that he should be Time Magazine's Man of the Year, said that no firm decision had yet been made. Perhaps the idea is still one of his "known unknowns". Full story

Courteney Cox It has been confirmed that Friends star Courteney Cox is pregnant with her first child. Cox, 39, and her actor husband David Arquette, 31, have been married for five years and had revealed they were trying in vitro fertilisation. Rumours of the method's success began when Arquette's brother let the secret slip while recording a talk show in October, but the segment was edited out. Now, though, the expected arrival of another little Friend is official.

David Bedford The directory service 118 118 is to be formally investigated by the watchdog Ofcom over claims by the British former 10,000-metre world record holder, David Bedford, that it "ripped off" his image. Bedford has claimed that his trademark 1970s long hair, droopy moustache and red socks have been used without his permission in a TV commercial. The company deny the charge and say that the runners in their advert were based on a generic Seventies look.

Steve Irwin "It's about time Bob got out there," said Australian Steve Irwin, explaining why he tucked his month-old son under one arm while feeding a 13-foot crocodile. Irwin, the host of the Discovery Network show Crocodile Hunter got snappy with critics, saying "it would be very bad if I don't teach my kids about the dangers in my backyard, mate". But Discovery said while Irwin "may parent in a different way," he wouldn't be repeating his action. Full story