NASA Prepares to Launch Comet-Buster

Chessphoon writes "NASA's Deep Impact, a spacecraft named after the 1998 movie, is scheduled to launch on January 12. If all goes as planned, the spacecraft will collide with Comet Tempel 1 six months later on July 4, and create a crater so that the inside of the comet can be analyzed."

Comments

Is it just me...

[mstra]

...or is this the kind of thing that, if it happened in a movie, would cause an apocolypse brought on by our own hubris?

Yes, I read TFA. I know that there is no danger. But those crazy scientists in the movies always think they are safe too.

Stop the Violence

[knapper_tech]

What if the comets retaliate by impacting Earth?

The aliens have got a little list

[AndroidCat]

And in six months, they've going to come and look for all of you!

Deep Impact's larger flyby spacecraft will carry a smaller impactor spacecraft to Tempel 1 for release into the comet's path for a planned collision. The flyby spacecraft will take pictures as the 370-kilogram (816 pound) copper-tipped impactor plunges into Tempel 1 at about 37,000 kilometers (22,990 miles) per hour. The impactor is expected to make a spectacular, football field-sized crater, seven to 15 stories deep, in the speeding comet. Carried aboard the impactor will be a standard mini-CD containing the names of comet, space and other enthusiasts from around the world.

Hopefully they won't be too pissed off. Maybe just an alien wedgie or something?

Re:What a waste of money

[Free_Meson]

IMO, why waste money to see the content of a comet? There are so many better things to learn and explore in this great cosmos of ours.

I bet there's a tootsie pop in the middle and we'll still be left pondering that eternal question: how many licks does it take to get to the middle of a tootsie pop?

Given their track record

[fuzzy12345]

NASA should have considered planning this mission to be a near-flyby. Given their record of hitting what they aim to miss and missing what they aim to hit...

Will they never learn...?

[tygerstripes]

Carried aboard the impactor will be a standard mini-CD containing the names of comet, space and other enthusiasts from around the world.

Now look, we all remember hearing back in the '80s how you could run a truck over a CD, cover it in jam and use it as a teething-ring and still get it to play, but it's just not true!!!

Send an I-pod instead. That might survive. If it doesn't get stolen en-route.

From my super smart and beautiful girlfriend dept

[roman_mir]

She thinks that the NASA is just hiding the fact that the comet is about to hit us and is dangerous so they decided to blow it up but masked the attempt as a scientific experiment.

(and before you, smartasses, ask me, yes, she is a girl :)

American vs. European Approach

[superyooser]

... the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft, which will attempt a controlled landing on a comet, but not until 2014.

Deep Impact, by contrast, will provide "instant gratification," says Grammier. The entire $330 million mission should be wrapped up a month after impact.

So, the Europeans are going to geeeently land their little rover (Beagle III?), putter around, and delicately inspect rocks and dust. Boooriiiinng! :-)

NASA, in typical American fashion...

This is one spacecraft NASA wants to smash and trash. "It would be like it's standing in the middle of the road and this huge semi coming down at it at 23,000 mph (37,015 kph), you know, just bam!" Grammier says. ... "We expect to provide great fireworks for all our observatories," Grammier says, "and that's exciting to do it on July Fourth."

KA-BLOOIEE! Blow it up! Blow it up! I'm so glad I'm an American. This is a country that combines science, space explosions, and patriotism into one very cool bundle. And we can take pictures of it from Mars.

I. Love. This. Countryyy! Yeeeeeeaaah! *does Bush/Ballmer monkey dance*