One Last mission For Deep Space 1

Vertigo01 writes: "Looks like NASA has found a fitting end for Deep Space 1, they're going to fly her THROUGH the coma of a comet to try and take some pictures of the comet's core ... the kicker is that they're doing it with barely any fuel left, and a kludged-together science-camera to replace the toasted navigation system ... kind of a fitting end for her IMO."

Comments

Re:$12 million to reprogram for this mission

[FTL]

> Reminds me of that story about pens in space. [...] The russians, facing the same problem, used a pencil.

For goodness sake, will people stop posting this trolling story? As has been said before this is misleading.

For the first few missions, the Soviets did use pencils. Then the Soviets went to Fisher (the American company that made the pens) and bought several cases. The reason is that pencils produce a lot of graphite dust. When you are locked in a room the size of a telephone booth for a week, you don't want graphite dust floating around, getting into your lungs, eyes and your equipment.