It's a Long, Hard Road to Mars - several mars probes have not made it to the planet

After the disappearance of the Mars Polar Lander this past December, a superstitious person might think NASA is jinxed, but such mishaps are hardly new. Since 1960, 18 previous Mars probes-four American and 14 Russian--have failed to reach the Red Planet:

October 1960: Soviet probes Mars 1960 A and Mars 1960 B do not reach Earth orbit, a preliminary step toward reaching Mars.

October 1962: Soviet Mars 1962 A explodes while still orbiting Earth.

November 1962: Soviet Mars I communications equipment fails en route.

November 1962: Soviet Mars 1962 Blander fails to leave Earth orbit.

November 1964: American Mariner 3 goes into a useless orbit around the sun.

November 1964: Soviet Mars Zond 2 loses radio contact with Earth en route.

May 1971: American Mariner 8 does not reach Earth orbit.

May 1971: Soviet Mars probe Kosmos 419 fails to leave Earth orbit.

November 1971: Soviet Mars 2 soft lander crash-lands on Mars.

February 1974: Soviet Mars 4 orbiter flies past the planet due to an engine malfunction.

March 1974: Soviet Mars 6 soft lander fails on its descent to the planet.

March 1974: Soviet Mars 7 orbiter/soft lander misses its planned Mars orbit.

September 1988: Soviet Phobos I probe is sent into a tumble by a command error.

January 1989: Soviet Phobos 2 is struck mute by a mechanical failure.

August 1993: American Mars Observer vanishes as it's about to go into Mars orbit.

November 1996: Russian Mars '96 orbiter/lander crashes into the Pacific.

September 1999: American Mars Climate Orbiter strays off course partly because of controllers' faulty data conversions from English to metric units of measurement.

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