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Asteroid Landing
guardia writes "This is my first submit to Slashdot and the following looked cool enough to me and since I haven't seen it posted yet on Slashdot, here goes! Basically, the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, ISAS, is planning to launch the M-V rocket from its Kagoshima Space Center located in Uuchinoura, Kagoshima. The rocket will contain the small craft Muses-C (also available in Japanese) which should land on Asteroid 1998SF36 (the "star prince"), leave a million names or so (you can register yours for free!) on the target marker, and come back with some surface samples."
Yeah great, and now that they have your name, all the ETs have to do is a Google search and you'll start getting collect telemarketing calls from outer space!
Personnally I see heaps of alarm bells ringing in this. Ill elaborate on a few :- Im pretty sure this will be really really expensive for very little benefit. :-Why the hell are they putting this on an asteroid :- If I was spending billions on a rocket i would finnish the web page
;) )
1. Return mission
2.Email/Confirm Email
3.Half the sections of the page are "under construction"
Aside from that it is the vibe of it (this is a reference for any australian fans of the castle
The Borg assimilated my race & all I got was this lousy T-shirt
Aliens perform a detailed scan of our solar system in the far distant future and find the asteroid. Unfortunately they won't be able to get any information from it since it has been slashdotted.
-- The morphemes of your disquisition are ascertainable, but they have eschewed an ambit of transpicuous exposition.
in some anime-like situration.
...is to hang out on an asteroid.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
The real site, to me, is : www.isas.ac.jp
The one linked looks like a scam to get a few millions address email of people interested in space/science. Here comes the sci./tech. spam ! Nowhere on the official site ( that I can see ) do they talk about leaving your name on the asteroid.
J.
Apparently the names are being etched onto aluminum foil, but I can't find any more detail than that. I'm wondering, are we talking about reynolds wrap and an impact "etching" device (ie your garden variety typewriter / dot matrix printer) ...?
I'd love to get my hands on better details about the actual engraving. Although it seems like plain ol' aluminum foil is probably the most economical choice, I've gotta wonder how long you'd be able to read the fine print. Never mind just the asteroid's own collection of dust and debris to sand away yer loved one's moniker - there's also those pesky micrometeorite impacts to consider...
I can just see this asteroid slamming into an alien world in a couple hundred years. They discover the names on the asteroid and consider it an attack by us (our names are on it of course...) While we're still paddling around trying to get to Mars, they show up on our doorstep and either blow us all up, or just those who put their names on the rock (or their great-great-great grandchildren).
It's there to pester folks who have a boatload of rejected articles ...
I agree, people have been leaving their names on Asteroids for quite some time.
"Oh no, you didn't, tell me you didn't send your name to that asteroid" Alice pleaded to Mineka. But Mineka couldn't tell her for she had sent her name to the satellite, and would remain an empty zombie until someone went and dealt with the nameless evil doing this to those who had sent their names to the asteroid and in so doing. unwittingly committed themselves to it.
I know...Lousy and repetitive. Can you do better?
I think its a scam. I doubt that would happen unless there is something more to it. Maybe the asteroid is heading towards earth, and they need to deflect it? BLAST some names in the sand, push it off course.
Justin from Techhead Technology News