Professor Colin Pillinger

Presenter0:16

My castaway this week is Professor Colin Pillinger. A world class planetary scientist, his daring mission to search for life on Mars with Beagle Two catapulted him to public prominence in case you're wondering, yes, he is the man from Bristol with the mutton chop sideburns.

Presenter0:33

Unearthing the mysteries of the Red Planet is, however, only half his story. His first job was for NASA, for the Apollo eleven space mission. These days he's professor of planetary science at the Open University, and is also on the brink of introducing a revolutionary technique for the early detection of T B.

Presenter0:52

Of his passion for opening science up to the man in the street, he says, I'm not aiming at the next Stephen Hawking.

Presenter0:59

I'm aiming for the kid who sits at the back of the class. That's the sort of kid I was.

Presenter1:04

So, Colin Pillinger, it was early Christmas morning, two thousand and three. You must have felt like a kid again yourself, wound up, waiting for maybe the biggest and best gift of all. But it was a gift that never came.

Professor Colin Pillinger1:19

Um it was an all night vigil. We uh sat in a a room waiting for the signal from NATA. So I was on a live telephone to uh a control center in California, and a voice came on and uh said, I'm sorry, there's no data for you.

Presenter1:39

And this was no data from Beagle Two that was supposed to be sending out the signal to say I'm here, I've landed.

Professor Colin Pillinger1:45

Sorry we have no data for you, which was supposed to be the data that was said, you know, we've got here and everything's okay.

Presenter1:52

A heart-sinking moment.

Professor Colin Pillinger1:54

Ah, but I still had to uh I had to encourage all the people in the room who were just as uh wound up as me because so many people had put so much effort into this. I had to be the one that sort of said, Don't worry, guys, it's not the end of the world.

Presenter2:08

Let me remind people, of course, at the time it was all over the news and it really captured the imagination of a public that often finds it difficult to engage in science and experiments. You had launched Beagle Two to take samples from Mars and

Professor Colin Pillinger2:23

Then work on Mars. It was a robot. It was programmed.

Presenter2:23

Then

Professor Colin Pillinger2:27

But it would send us back the data from the experiments it had done, and in reverse we would look at the results and say, right, now do this, now do that. So we would continuously interrogate it and also feed it new instructions. Nobody has yet launched that experiment. There's still unfinished business on Mars.

Presenter2:48

Do you personally find it annoying the the public perception

Presenter2:52

Of you is that you are known for a failure, when in fact what you see it as is a reasonable step on the journey to success.

Professor Colin Pillinger3:00

I'm the Eddie the Eagle of science. It wasn't a failure. This is what uh science is about, is that you actually build something and if you're lucky you get to the you're the person who gets to the top of the Everest, but somebody else might be the one that does it. Ninety percent of all the results you ever get out of doing a scientific experiment are things you didn't anticipate. Yeah, there's so many other issues of

Presenter3:21

Yeah, there's

Professor Colin Pillinger3:23

where Britain actually didn't follow through on what was a a major breakthrough. And that's what annoys me most. Not that we believed it we failed, we didn't. We know how we could have done it better and it we weren't allowed to have another go.

Presenter3:39

We'll explore that in some detail a little later. For now though it's time for the music, tell me about the first track that we're going to hear today.

Professor Colin Pillinger3:46

I don't believe in uh standing around talking about it. I just uh have a go for it, so it's a little less conversation, a little bit more action. Elvis Presley.

Speaker 43:58

Hey, a little less conversation, a little more action.

Speaker 44:03

All this aggravation is satisfaction in me.

Speaker 44:07

A little more fight, a little less spark A little less fight, a little more smart And close your mouth and open up your heart And maybe satisfy me

Speaker 44:15

That is for me, baby.

Speaker 44:17

Maybe close your eyes and listen to the music and dig to the summer breeze.

Speaker 44:22

It's a groove at night and I can show you how to use it to come along with me and put your mind at ease.

Presenter4:26

That was Elvis Presley and a little less conversation. Let's stay, Colin Pillinger, with my rudimentary understanding of Beagle Two. I was fascinated to read that uh Beagle Two began life as a little design sketched out on the back of a a beer mat that looked something like sort of high tech dustbin lid.

Professor Colin Pillinger4:44

Yeah, that wasn't actually where it began. It began out of sheer bloody mindedness when your bloody mindedness. Mine and my wife's.

Professor Colin Pillinger4:54

I went to a meeting at the European Space Agency.

Professor Colin Pillinger4:56

We worked on Martian meteorites. We'd found this evidence. Perhaps there was life there, but it couldn't you know, people wouldn't believe it because the meteorites had fallen on Earth. Therefore, you know, the evidence might be terrestrial contamination. I see. And I went to the European Space Agency, who I knew were having a mission to Mars, and I said, You really knew you have to take a lander. And their response to that was, You've never built a lander. Who's going to build it? The Brits won't pay for it. And I said, I think this is so important. Somebody will do it. We got outside the meeting and we're driving away in the car. And my wife said, Are you serious? And I said, Yes. And she said, Right, you need a name for it. We're going to call it Beagle Two.

Presenter5:34

She came up with the name.

Professor Colin Pillinger5:34

It was my wife's name. My wife is a a scientist who has an amazing gift for PR. I'm the front man, my wife's the planner.

Presenter5:42

So, where did the beer mat come in then? Because it's not an apocryphal story. The beer mat does exist with the mat.

Professor Colin Pillinger5:45

It does exist with the market. We actually designed a spacecraft and submitted it as a proposal to the European Space Agency. They turn in fact they turned all the applications to fly a lander to Mars down. And a group of people were sat in a bar

Professor Colin Pillinger6:02

And a man called Sean Whitehand said, I think this is the way we should do it, and do it on the back of the beer map, where the beer mat comes from.

Presenter6:08

I see. You've used the the phrase bloody mindedness. If somebody tells you you can't do something, does that only make you more determined?

Professor Colin Pillinger6:16

One thing my father gave me my father wasn't a very educated man he was a a manual worker. If I ever said as a child I can't do this he would say there's no such word as can't.

Presenter6:28

You've said also a moment ago that you're sort of known as the Eddie the Eagle of science. I mean that is a complete misrepresentation of who you are. You're a highly accomplished scientist working in your field. Do you think sometimes the fact that people seize on that sort of British amateurism, the kind of Heath Robinson approach, means that we don't properly engage with the importance of the kind of work that you and your team do?

Professor Colin Pillinger6:52

I would like to believe that we would recognize the importance of space exploration because it is very inspirational. I got out of science an amazing career and I like to encourage a lot of other people who think that they couldn't do this to have the experience that I've had.

Presenter7:13

Let's have some music then, this one going back a bit. Tell me about this next song that we're about to hear.

Professor Colin Pillinger7:18

This is the first music I can recall hearing. It was played at a pantomime that I went to with the bouncing ball going along the words. Our one big treat when we were kids was to be taken to the pantomime at Christmas by my mother's sister who we called Pem. Didn't call her auntie, but she saved up the money and bought us a box. And I'll String Along With You is the title and it was, you know, it was a dance record from the 1930s.

Speaker 37:46

Well, you may not be an angel.

Professor Colin Pillinger7:47

Uh

Speaker 37:50

Cause angels are so few.

Speaker 37:53

But until the day that one comes along, I'll swing along with you.

Speaker 38:00

I'm looking for an angel.

Speaker 38:03

To sing my love song to

Speaker 38:06

And until the day that one comes along, I'll sing my song to you.

Presenter8:12

Al Bully and I'll string along with you and memories there, Colin Pillinger, of singing along at the Panto that your auntie saved up to take you to. Um you've said I only ever went to school because there were other boys to play football with.

Professor Colin Pillinger8:18

Perhaps it's good too.

Professor Colin Pillinger8:24

Important.

Presenter8:24

Yeah.

Professor Colin Pillinger8:25

More or less.

Presenter8:25

Yeah. So it wasn't the academia that interested you then?

Professor Colin Pillinger8:27

I certainly managed in lessons. I probably could have uh done better if I'd have concentrated more. But I used to go early to play football before school. I would play football at break, lunch time, and I'd stay after school to play football. If the headmaster f confiscated the ball, we'd play with a beer bottle top.

Presenter8:47

And so d did knowledge come easily to you then? Did you find lessons were pretty easily dealt with and it was the food?

Professor Colin Pillinger8:51

For some subjects. Right.

Presenter8:53

Which ones?

Professor Colin Pillinger8:54

Science I found easy, experiments I care. Putting pennies into nitric acid and calcium chloride into the ink wells. The explosions. We did have a few explosions.

Presenter9:05

And and so your dad worked for the gas board?

Professor Colin Pillinger9:08

Yes, my dad was a manual worker.

Presenter9:10

What was he like, your dad?

Professor Colin Pillinger9:12

I think he was a marvellous man. He used to take me to work and uh again, I know I learnt things from that, but I could always copy people. I'm described sometimes as the only FRS who can plaster a ceiling.

Presenter9:25

And what about your mum? Was she she was a stay-at-home mother looking after you and you had a a sister who was quite a lot older, six years older?

Professor Colin Pillinger9:32

Yeah, my mother was a saint.

Presenter9:34

What

Professor Colin Pillinger9:34

Yeah.

Presenter9:34

Uh

Professor Colin Pillinger9:34

My mother gathered up old ladies. She had sort of contingents of old ladies that she sort of looked after, would go round and get old ladies shopping, and as I say, she was a saint.

Presenter9:47

So you would have been growing up just in the post-war years, so there would still be rationing.

Professor Colin Pillinger9:52

Oh, yeah. That was part of the pantomime, is to save up the ration coupons to have the sweets to go to the pantomime. Really? I can remember the equivalent of green shield stamps of the day. You had to remember a number, give your number in order to get your divvy. I can still remember our number if it's of any use to you. No, I it won't be, but I'm glad you can remember. In case somebody else goes down the co-op and gets my divvy.

Presenter10:15

And so you were mad about football. Did you go to football matches?

Professor Colin Pillinger10:19

Yes, but I'd rather play.

Professor Colin Pillinger10:21

I was lucky enough when I played to play behind uh skilled and cultured left wingers. They're usually cultured left wingers, they're of no use whatsoever. They if they tackle they commit fouls. So when I tack tackle I commit fouls deliberately if I have to.

Presenter10:33

Interesting.

Presenter10:36

I'm not surprised by that. That because I I think that you you're a you're quite a toughie and that started when you were little. I mean you're you're a determined sort.

Professor Colin Pillinger10:38

Because

Professor Colin Pillinger10:44

You you had to be. We didn't come from the the most salubrious side of town. Right. You know, I don't spa say I spent my life fighting, but uh you had to look after yourself.

Presenter10:49

Yeah.

Presenter10:55

Let's have some more music, track number three.

Professor Colin Pillinger10:58

This is a football song of course. It's my association with Alex James of Blur. He's part of Fat Les with Keith Allen and by working with them on the football anthem Jerusalem this gave me the chance to do what every little boy who plays football's dream is, is to walk up the tunnel at Wembley out onto the pitch.

Presenter11:20

So you're actually playing on this track we're about to hear.

Professor Colin Pillinger11:22

I am beating a big bass drum. Right. And I got on top of the pops and we reached number eleven. I'm the only FRS who's had a hit but in the top of the pops as well.

Presenter11:24

Right.

Presenter11:31

Can you do it whilst plastering the ceiling, though, that's what I'm wondering.

Professor Colin Pillinger11:34

difficult with the drum but

Presenter11:35

Let's hear it.

Speaker 411:37

And eat those feats in ancient times World England's mount

Presenter12:06

That was Fat Les guest starring Professor Colin Pillinger. Could you hear yourself in there?

Professor Colin Pillinger12:11

No, I'm afraid not. But we still hold the record of the biggest band ever to be on top of the pops.

Presenter12:16

Yeah. That's quite a record.

Professor Colin Pillinger12:16

Do you think the lapses?

Presenter12:18

Did you really? Yes. You were of course there singing Jerusalem. So Colin Pill and Joe, you have led you've led teams at Cambridge University, at the Open University. You've developed equipment that gives us

Presenter12:29

A lot more of the sort of detail of the chemical makeup of planets than we've ever understood before. And yet you say you were something of a disaster at science as a student. Is that just for a nice head?

Professor Colin Pillinger12:41

deadline, or were you really Well, I don't think I was a disaster, but I put my fair share of reactions on the ceiling. I started life as a I I trained as an undergraduate chemist. I didn't really have anything I was thinking of doing.

Professor Colin Pillinger12:56

until I was just in the last few months of my undergraduate training I was given a research project, and I discovered that you could actually do something that nobody else had ever done before, and so you were the only person on the planet for a few minutes, maybe a few hours, that knew something. And that turned me on to doing research.

Presenter13:15

Let's talk about nineteen sixty nine. It was July, I think the twenty first of July, British time, that Apollo eleven was due to make its first lunar landing. Do you do you remember where you were? Do you remember what you were thinking?

Professor Colin Pillinger13:28

I remember watching it. It was uh three o'clock in the morning when they stepped out onto the lunar surface. But though I remember the pictures, I remember much better the time when I received the samples, because that was my involvement, that was my personal involvement in Apollo.

Presenter13:45

And tell me about the moment then that you came into contact with the lunar samples for the first time. Recreate that for me.

Professor Colin Pillinger13:50

I had to fetch them from London because they were all brought over from NASA in one container and distributed to a number of scientists in the UK. I went up to London to fetch them and I caught a train back. And before I left I phoned and said I've got them. I'm coming on the such and such a train.

Presenter14:08

So you would actually just walk carrying the briefcase.

Professor Colin Pillinger14:10

Carrying them in a briefcase. And the secretary said to me, Somehow the media have got wind of your collecting them today. They're camped out at Templemead station.

Professor Colin Pillinger14:20

So I got off at bath and caught a bus. Now I would never do that now.

Presenter14:23

Never

Professor Colin Pillinger14:25

But I was not very savvy in the ways of the press, so uh so I got off at bath and cooked the bus.

Presenter14:30

And the extraordinary feeling I mean, of course, there there's a sort of slightly comedic edge to it, the idea that you're kind of travelling on a bus with these lunar samples, but the the actual reality of

Presenter14:40

Literally holding a piece of the moon in your hand.

Presenter14:44

Must have been extraordinary.

Professor Colin Pillinger14:45

I can't look at the moon even now and not think to myself, I actually touched that. I'm one of these very privileged people who worked on those samples from Apollo. Funnily enough, one of the I was still into PR even though I wouldn't talk to the media. I put the lunar samples on display in Bristol and people queued to come and see them. And a little boy who queued up at the time

Professor Colin Pillinger15:11

Was Mark Sims who became the mission manager for Pico 2. He said he was inspired by that day to become a scientist.

Presenter15:14

He's

Presenter15:18

Let's have some music for now. Tell me what track number four is.

Professor Colin Pillinger15:21

You've told me already you won't let me take my dog. No, not that. I have to have something to remind me of my dogs. When you come home the welcome you get is so amazing. So this is Slade, another member of the Sideburns Club, Notty Holder.

Presenter15:24

No, not alive.

Speaker 415:39

A quarter of my life is almost past.

Speaker 416:03

What's the time that I spent without you?

Presenter16:09

Slade and darling be home soon to remind you, Colin Pillinger, of all those lovely dogs that you've owned over the years that always give you a warm welcome whenever you uh come home. Um you were responsible with with other people working around you then for developing

Presenter16:23

A type of technology that was able to take much smaller samples than had ever been dealt with before. A thousand times smaller. A thousand times smaller. And then look at those samples again in a much more detailed way than had ever been analyzed before. Can you explain to me in layman's terms

Presenter16:41

How you managed to develop that technology, I mean a thousand times smaller, is a remarkable leap forward to have made.

Professor Colin Pillinger16:47

Well, it was actually very simple. You just had to you know, one of these lateral leaps of faith and uh to analyze the samples that we were interested in you used an instrument called a mass spectrometer.

Professor Colin Pillinger16:59

And most of the sample in this particular instrument is fed into the sample and is pumped away.

Professor Colin Pillinger17:05

And what I said was, what a waste. Why don't we just let the material into the instrument, turn the pump off.

Professor Colin Pillinger17:12

and let it sit there whilst we analyse it.

Presenter17:15

And it worked. And what was useful in the stuff that you found that that had then made its way into our solar system?

Professor Colin Pillinger17:23

Well, this is what astronomy is really all about, when you look with a telescope.

Professor Colin Pillinger17:28

You aren't actually looking in distance, you do look in distance, but you're looking in time.

Presenter17:31

Yeah.

Presenter17:33

Yes.

Professor Colin Pillinger17:33

And Astronomers' Holy Grail is to find out what happened at the beginning. And we had a we found a way of actually looking before our solar system. It's very much detective story stuff.

Presenter17:45

And what did that tell us? Where did that take you? Is there a concrete knowledge there that somehow advances people understanding?

Professor Colin Pillinger17:51

Well the technique that we developed has huge applications. Carbon is made up of different parts of carbon which have a different weight.

Professor Colin Pillinger18:02

And if you can measure the ratio of these weights, you can work out all the processes that have gone on with that carbon.

Presenter18:09

But so uh by the best estimates, our solar system was formed is is it about four and a half?

Professor Colin Pillinger18:15

Four and a half billion years ago.

Presenter18:16

Um when you're talking about it, there is something as well as clearly the the intellectual vigour that is applied.

Presenter18:25

There's something very emotional about the whole thing. Why do you think it stirs? Genealogy.

Speaker 418:31

Yeah.

Professor Colin Pillinger18:31

You you know, people always want to know where they came from. Uh, with uh the science that I do, it's can you find your way back to the Big Bang?

Presenter18:41

And what about the the Are We Alone question?

Professor Colin Pillinger18:44

Well, that is the other major question, of course. I can't imagine there are many people that haven't stood outside on a starry night and looked at the millions and myriads of stars and thought, I wonder if I'm alone. And this is what we were trying to do with seeing whether there was life on Mars.

Presenter18:47

Yeah.

Presenter19:03

And the life on Mars might have existed when, when you say life.

Professor Colin Pillinger19:06

There's a the meteorite that we really worked on in all of this was actually quite a young meteorite, it was only seven hundred thousand years old.

Presenter19:10

Yeah.

Presenter19:15

Right.

Professor Colin Pillinger19:15

But the the one which started all this off was one which was three point eight billion years old.

Professor Colin Pillinger19:22

Now there was an argument at the time that because Mars would have cooled down faster than Earth, that life on Mars could have started before life on Earth, and life on Earth could have actually been transferred from Mars to Earth, in which case you're a Martian.

Presenter19:39

I've been called many things. Um do you have a personal theory? Um do you never think to yourself, damn it, you know, I just can't believe that at some point, somewhere, there wasn't something else out there that we would identify as life.

Professor Colin Pillinger19:51

I cannot believe that life on Earth is unique.

Professor Colin Pillinger19:54

The element carbon which makes up life is in fact the fourth most abundant element in the universe.

Professor Colin Pillinger20:01

Hydrogen is the most abundant element, oxygen is the third most abundant element.

Professor Colin Pillinger20:06

So water is the most abundant compound.

Professor Colin Pillinger20:09

So you've got your water, you've got the element in which you build compounds for life. Can't believe it hasn't happened somewhere else. I think it would be incredibly arrogant of us to believe that we're the pinnacle of evolution.

Professor Colin Pillinger20:21

But

Presenter20:21

Let's have some more music. What have we got next, then, Colin?

Professor Colin Pillinger20:24

This is I you didn't play the last one loud enough, so I'm gonna have a louder one.

Presenter20:28

Okay.

Professor Colin Pillinger20:28

Okay.

Presenter20:29

You like it

Presenter20:33

Right.

Professor Colin Pillinger20:34

I'm gonna have heavy metal and I'm gonna have If Today Was Your Last Day by Nickelback. You know, you have to do everything, otherwise you've missed the chance.

Speaker 420:43

If today was your last day, would you make your mark by mending your broken heart? You know it's never too late to shoot for the stars, regardless of who you are. If today was your last day

Presenter21:08

Nickelback, nice and loud, Colin. And if today was your last day. I'm wondering on that basis of sort of trying everything if if you've ever been tempted or seriously considered working in the States, where where surely the the funding and often the enthusiasm i is greater for your type of work than it is here in Britain.

Professor Colin Pillinger21:26

Yeah, I could have gone to the States. I've been offered chances to go to the States. I've been offered more money than I earn here, but uh

Professor Colin Pillinger21:33

No, I'm very patriotic. I would like to believe that there are lots of clever people in Britain that uh you know, we don't have to go to the States to find them all. There are some of them over this side of the Atlantic.

Presenter21:44

You you think hardest, you've said when you're milking the cows,'cause you run a a a dairy farm.

Professor Colin Pillinger21:50

I did milk the cows, I have milked cows, a whole herd of cows, and gone to the university on the same day, milked them twice a day.

Presenter21:52

Right.

Professor Colin Pillinger21:58

My father always got up at six o'clock. I once decided uh when I was quite young that I wasn't going to stay in bed in the mornings. I got up at six o'clock because there was no time to waste. I didn't really want to be here on earth and think, gosh, I spent most of it sleeping.

Presenter22:14

So tell me about the the research then that that you were doing at that time. Th this was B what, the nineteen eighties?

Speaker 422:20

Yeah.

Presenter22:20

Yeah.

Speaker 422:20

Uh

Presenter22:20

Is that about right? And you were you found what you believed to be evidence I I was gonna say evidence of life on Mars. I mean I know it's not as simple as that, but explain it to me in a little more detail.

Professor Colin Pillinger22:30

Yeah, well the place I worked on lunar samples, what they really did was to look for evidence of life in ancient rocks on Earth, try and show that life started four billion years ago nearly. So I knew those techniques. And when we started working on meteorites and I discovered that uh people believed that they might have meteorites from Mars, one of the first experiments that we did

Professor Colin Pillinger22:55

was that we found that the meteorites had a mineral in them which, when it's deposited on earth, actually contains the evidence of organisms that lived in the water.

Professor Colin Pillinger23:05

And we then started saying, well, perhaps this is evidence of life on Mars, but we couldn't prove it.

Presenter23:09

No, because is the danger there then that there is a uh the possibility of what I would characterize as a contamination from where you found these? You know, if they had were on Mars and stayed on Mars, then they wouldn't have been contaminated. But the fact that

Professor Colin Pillinger23:20

That was exactly the reason why B Good two happened. Right. Since the meteorites had been collected on Earth, where life is ubiquitous, no one would believe that it wasn't contamination. So we were going to go back to Mars and repeat the experiment.

Presenter23:22

Right.

Professor Colin Pillinger23:34

And say right now tell us it's not in the samples on Mars.

Presenter23:38

Now, you mentioned your your wife, Judith. You've been married for more than thirty years. You talked about all your disciplines. You've talked about the dairy farming. You've talked about plastering ceilings.

Presenter23:49

Can't imagine you the easiest person to live with.

Presenter23:52

Pretty cheaper.

Professor Colin Pillinger23:52

You should interview her.

Presenter23:54

And what might she say if I asked her what she

Professor Colin Pillinger23:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Presenter24:00

Ha

Speaker 424:00

Um

Presenter24:01

Um

Professor Colin Pillinger24:01

We have actually not just lived together, we've worked together for all that time because we actually met working in the same lab.

Speaker 424:04

Uh

Presenter24:04

Yeah.

Speaker 424:04

Yeah.

Presenter24:05

Uh

Professor Colin Pillinger24:08

So we've spent sort of uh eighteen hours a day in awake in each other's company, never mind about the other eight hours sleeping. So all that time we've been together.

Presenter24:19

Let's have some music before we talk more about Judith then. What what's next?

Professor Colin Pillinger24:22

Well, th this is the one which is special for us. It's the the night we made a momentous decision, is that uh Casablanca was showing on the television, so I want to hear As Time Goes By, which was the song from Casablanca, and I want to hear it by somebody called Johnny Rain, because this is one of the records I owned when I was young.

Speaker 424:41

You must remember this.

Speaker 424:46

A kiss is still a kiss.

Speaker 424:50

A sigh is just a sigh.

Speaker 424:55

The fundamental things apply.

Speaker 425:01

As time

Presenter25:02

I am

Speaker 425:02

Time goes by.

Presenter25:07

Johnnie Ray and as time goes by. You were uncharacteristically coy going into that, Colin Pillinger. You said that that music represented a night that you made a momentous decision, and then you didn't tell me what the decision was.

Professor Colin Pillinger25:18

This whole song encapsulates a lot of my life that uh you know, which would never have happened if it hadn't been for Judith. Right. You know, my life would never have gone the way it went if it hadn't been for my wife.

Presenter25:26

Right.

Presenter25:31

Now, as we've discussed, Beagle 2 well, it it disappeared. You didn't know where it was for a long time, and there was an inquiry into the Beagle 2 mission, and that inquiry

Presenter25:42

In essence, said it shouldn't have gone ahead, that the team wasn't big enough and therefore wasn't capable enough to handle something, a commitment of that size.

Professor Colin Pillinger25:51

They said it wasn't managed properly, which was rather

Professor Colin Pillinger25:58

A code for saying Golin Billinger didn't run it. And that's what the journalists read. And that's not true, because I didn't manage it. I was the front man.

Presenter26:05

Okay.

Professor Colin Pillinger26:06

We had brilliant managers. Every part of that project was managed by guys who were expert in their field.

Presenter26:13

The great misfortune of BeagleTwo was that it's believed that if it was j if it had just landed a couple of meters to is at the north, then it wouldn't have gone it went into a crater, didn't you think?

Professor Colin Pillinger26:22

We don't know. We still look for it. Right. We have a best guess.

Presenter26:25

Right.

Presenter26:28

Right.

Professor Colin Pillinger26:28

But there's no way of proving it. We still look for evidence of Beagle Two. I have one person he compulsively looks at the pictures that NASA give us in the hope that he will find evidence of what happened, because if we did, we'd know how far we got, and then we'd know how to do it better the next time.

Presenter26:45

I said in the introduction that you uh are part of a team that is doing this pioneering work on being able to diagnose T B much earlier. Currently it it takes is it almost a couple of months?

Professor Colin Pillinger26:57

Yeah. We're trying to diagnose it the same day.

Presenter27:00

The same day.

Professor Colin Pillinger27:01

The instrument that went to Mars to look for life was funded by the medical charity, the Wellcome Trust. Right. And they took a flyer on this. If you can build an instrument that can survive on Mars or and in what they call a low resource environment,

Professor Colin Pillinger27:17

There must be applications on Earth, so they gave us the money, on the understanding that when we'd finished the Mars project we would turn our team over to work on their problems.

Presenter27:27

Which he did.

Professor Colin Pillinger27:27

Which we did, we turned it over to trying to diagnose TB in real time, because to get a good confirmation of T B takes six to eight weeks. And if you walked in from the bush in Africa, have a T B test, you don't wait six to eight weeks, you disappear and don't come back sometimes because you're dead.

Presenter27:49

And when will it actually be up and working?

Professor Colin Pillinger27:51

Well, at the end of the year, before the end of the year, we're going to send a couple of uh pioneering Pathfinder instruments out into Malawi, where we will see whether this works in the field. Then there will have to be a full scale clinical trial. You know, if that works, then maybe w people will make hundreds of these things.

Presenter28:12

There are a few ifs in in there, but if this turns out to be the thing that you think it is.

Presenter28:19

How will you feel personally about that?

Professor Colin Pillinger28:20

Uh

Professor Colin Pillinger28:21

Just to be able to say to people, you know, what price do you put on a human life? You know, you've complained that I spent a lot of money on a space mission that didn't uh succeed. Uh just simply say what price do you put on a human life? There are, you know, hundreds, thousands of people who die from T B.

Presenter28:40

Let's have track number seven gone, what is it and why have you chosen it?

Professor Colin Pillinger28:43

None of this was done you know Beagle, my wife, my parents, any of this was done without and my father was definitely one of the people I want to remember in all of this.

Professor Colin Pillinger28:56

And, you know, I try to educate people who don't believe that they can do science. So I want a Rolling Stones record because I'm a child of the sixties. And I'm going to have this called The Salt of the Earth. It's The Working Man.

Speaker 429:12

Let's drink into the heart world you keep up.

Speaker 429:17

Drink to the lonely forest

Speaker 429:23

Read you clad to the good and the evil.

Speaker 429:28

Let me to the salt of the earth.

Speaker 429:33

Pray a prayer for the common good soul, yea.

Presenter29:38

The Rolling Stones and Salt of the Earth. You've described, Colin Pillinger, this the very rich and vigorous life that you have led so far. Four years ago you were diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and I'm wondering how much your day to day life has changed because of that.

Professor Colin Pillinger29:53

There are things I can't do.

Presenter29:55

Yeah.

Professor Colin Pillinger29:55

Uh

Presenter29:55

Yeah.

Professor Colin Pillinger29:55

Yeah, I had the farm which uh yeah, there's a lot of hard work that goes with a farm. Actually I can't do physical work. I can't even dig the garden. I used to get some of my best ideas, not uh milking the cows, but actually mucking them out.

Presenter30:10

So for somebody who gloried in the those physical activities um and who indeed seemed to find some release in them from all the mental activity that was going on that

Presenter30:21

I can't imagine that's not a very frustrating plan.

Professor Colin Pillinger30:23

Please to be.

Professor Colin Pillinger30:24

I don't like having to ask people to do things for me.

Speaker 430:26

Yeah.

Professor Colin Pillinger30:27

So the fact that I can't do physical things anymore, there are still some things that I have in my plan of I haven't done this yet, so I'll I'll do it.

Professor Colin Pillinger30:36

One of the things that I was told uh uh very early on, you have an amazing story here, don't anybody pinch it. You know, it it can be a drama.

Professor Colin Pillinger30:46

Yeah, maybe that's in the future.

Presenter30:48

Right.

Presenter30:49

Now I'm going to send you to an island, of course. Um lonely, I would imagine.

Professor Colin Pillinger30:55

Without the dogs? Probably yes, but uh But put it this way, I'll be able to if I can find a man Friday, I'll be able to direct growing things. We won't suffer. I can make sure we're well fed and entertained.

Presenter31:10

You would cope, I imagine.

Professor Colin Pillinger31:11

Yeah.

Presenter31:11

Let's have your last piece of music then. What what are we going to hear now?

Professor Colin Pillinger31:15

I have lectured hundreds of times about Beagle before it happened, BeagleTwo, and what happened since. I actually made a a D V D that I show at the beginning of the talks. Then I say it's a bit sad at the end, so Hank is it the ready and uh I assure you it is sad sad at the end and but nevertheless I still want to uh to remember it. It's a record by Mercury Rev and it's called Darkness Rising.

Speaker 431:47

I dreamed of you on my farm I dreamed of you in my arms But dreams are always wrong

Speaker 432:01

I never dreamed I'd hurt you.

Speaker 432:05

I never dreamed I'd lose you In my dreams I'm always strong

Presenter32:13

Mercury Rev and The Dark is rising, as you say, at the end of the D V D cut to that. Not a dry eye in the house, I would imagine, Colin Pillinger.

Professor Colin Pillinger32:20

Ah, yes, I have had people come up to me and say I have never cried an astronomy lecture before tears rolling down their faces.

Presenter32:28

There is a copy, of course, of the The Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare on the island. I'm going to ask you to take a book too. What will your book be?

Professor Colin Pillinger32:35

Well, I will take Journey into Space because it's such a an iconic space book. But uh I'd rather have Jesus Christ Superstar than the Bible.

Presenter32:45

Oh, you're getting the Bible. I'm giving you the Bible. And, um, a luxury too.

Professor Colin Pillinger32:50

I'm not actually Bristolian. I was born a few yards outside the boundary in a place called Kingswood. But I want something to remind me of Bristol, so I'll take the picture of the Clifton Suspension Bridge, because Brunel was one of my heroes. And he wasn't from Bristol either. He was an outsider.

Presenter32:54

Right.

Presenter33:05

Okay, you may have that picture then.

Presenter33:08

If you had to choose just one of these eight discs, which one would you choose?

Professor Colin Pillinger33:12

I think I'd have the the Johnny Rae because that does encapsulate a lot of my life and nothing would have happened without my wife.

Presenter33:20

Professor Colin Pillinger, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Professor Colin Pillinger33:24

Thank you.

Presenter33:31

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.