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Mission to Harpoon Comet is Back on Track

Posted by michael on from the go-go-go dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Rosetta mission planners have announced today that after an indefinite launch delay earlier this year, their goal of landing on a comet is back on track. Their new baseline target is a rendezvous with the comet, Churyumov-Gerasimenko, in November 2014. En route to the comet, Rosetta will inspect two asteroids (Otawara and Siwa) at close quarters."

13 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. and if they screw up... by TWX · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... and send the comet crashing into the earth, Lori Petty will rescue Naomi Watts, and they will fight against Malcolm McDowell and save us all from Water and Power!

    I think I need to turn off the TV and go outside now...

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  2. Implications for Life development... by SkArcher · · Score: 4, Insightful

    is the main reason for this project. The "Dirty Snowball" theory of Biological beginnings could be given a comprehensive shot (in the arm or in the head), depending upon the results of this mission.

    *sighs*

    Only 11 years to wait for the data to come back, we could have been to Mars and back 3 times by then (and I hope we will have)

    The sooner we get ourselves (and more importantly, all our heavy, polluting industry) off this planet, the better.

    --

    An infinite number of monkeys will eventually come up with the complete works of /.
    1. Re:Implications for Life development... by 73939133 · · Score: 4, Informative

      we could have been to Mars and back 3 times by then (and I hope we will have)

      We will have. There are several Mars missions in progress, including sample return missions (see here).

      However, if there were manned Mars missions planned, we wouldn't have any money left for all this neat science.

      The sooner we get ourselves (and more importantly, all our heavy, polluting industry) off this planet, the better.

      Going into space won't help with that. Conserving energy and resources, family planning, and other measures will.

    2. Re:Implications for Life development... by SkArcher · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, I'm in favour of Orbital industry (it makes no sense to put industry at the bottom of a gravity well, when most of where the results of that industry will be needed is in space anyway. Raw materials are also easier to come by in space (asteroids) and possibly in low G environments (Luna, moons of the gas giants)

      The way, I see it, Terra (i prefer the Latin terminology) is our one and only food producing eco-system. While it may be possible to grow crops in orbital greenhouse environments, it would be a lot more difficult, expensive and dangerous, besides taking up a great deal of bio-system resources (atmospheric controls, bio-containment of organisms found in soils and hydroponics, etc). It will be much easier to use Terra for food production and space for Industry.

      In addition to this advanced manufactuing techniques are already in development for zero-G industry, which are expected to lead to massive advances in materials science, pharmaceuticals and a number of other fields.

      Ultimately, I see the best course for Terra to relax and become the cultural, agricultural and tourism centre of the Solar system, movng Industry to orbit to preserve what is our only food source that does not require mechanical modulation.

      But hey, you can be in favour of polluting the planet and then starving to death or living on Soylent Green if you want.

      --

      An infinite number of monkeys will eventually come up with the complete works of /.
  3. Tip for NASA by Da+Fokka · · Score: 4, Funny

    one foot is 0.3049m

    1. Re:Tip for NASA by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 5, Insightful
      one foot is 0.3049m

      You're off by one digit; if you aim for a comet 1 billion miles away, you're going to miss it by 100,000 miles.

      Plus, it's not that simple. You have to decide if you're using standard feet (.3048 meter) or U.S. survey feet (0.3048006096012 meter). You might still miss the comet by 600 miles.

  4. Important Mission by JJ · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Comets coming from the Oort cloud contain the least contaminated matter from the start of the solar system. Exploring and sampling material from them actually answer a wide variety of questions including matters about the origin of life. Finding amino acids in the sample would imply that life on Earth was not self-generating.

    --
    So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
    1. Re:Important Mission by tomem · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The catch is that it really isn't possible to rendezvous with a comet that has recently been in the Oort cloud. Those orbits are too eccentric so we are more likely to visit a pretty old comet that has been processed in the inner solar system for a long time and has settled into a relatively more accessible orbit.

      NASA aborted such a mission, the Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby mission or CRAF, in 1992 after developing it for five years, in favor of the Cassini mission to Saturn and its moon Titan.

      --
      ThosEM
  5. Re:Dumbest idea EVAR by RyatNrrd · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes. Centripetal force. The Earth is constantly changing direction (as it orbits), which means its velocity (speed with direction) is constantly changing. Change in velocity / time = acceleration. The direction of acceleraton is towards the sun.

  6. Yeah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Rosetta will inspect two asteroids (Otawara and Siwa) at close quarters."

    It's about time that us humans started doing the probing to the aliens!

  7. Hey... by Faust7 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Second chance for any Heaven's Gate folks that got left behind!

    --
    The coolest voice ever.
  8. Re:Dumbest idea EVAR by bmckeever · · Score: 5, Funny
    There's this really big thing in the center of the Solar System that exerts a gravitational on the earth. I know it looks small from here (about the size of a quarter), but it's really big.

    --
    Your favorite .sig sucks
  9. Industry on earth and in space. by Christopher+Thomas · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, I'm in favour of Orbital industry (it makes no sense to put industry at the bottom of a gravity well, when most of where the results of that industry will be needed is in space anyway.

    Production of bulk items in space is only economically viable _if_ they are to be used mostly in space. In practice, they'll be used wherever most of the population is. For the forseeable future, this is on earth.

    Further, most pollution is from three areas - chemical processing (be it smelting, the plastics industry, or what-have-you), growing crops (fertilizer runoff), and supporting population and industry power consumption (generating electricity, running cars).

    If you're planning to move either of the first two into space, you'll have to make them closed-loop processes due to shortage of materials (hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen are hard to come by in the inner solar system; the belt is far enough away to present *serious* transport problems). If you're making these processes closed-loop, you might as well build the same factories on earth, as they will no longer pollute.

    The last is tied in considerable part to where your population is (as it's what uses power). That's mostly on earth, due to the difficulty moving the earth's population off-planet.

    In summary, unless the population is primarily based in space, I don't believe it would be beneficial to move industry there. Focus on making industry less polluting down here (and on closing the other end of the loop by using landfills as chemical feedstock for manufacturing).