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NASA Prepares to Launch Comet-Buster

Posted by michael on from the where's-the-kaboom dept.

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."

5 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. Stop the Violence by knapper_tech · · Score: 5, Funny

    What if the comets retaliate by impacting Earth?

    --
    "There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell them." ~ Louis Armstrong
  2. Do your homework... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The NASA project was *not* named after the movie. Read http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/01/01/comet.bus ter.ap/index.html
    for the real story.

  3. Given their track record by fuzzy12345 · · Score: 5, Funny

    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...

    --

    Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
  4. Re:What a waste of money by drakethegreat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think you are thinking about it the wrong way. NASA doesn't like to spend more money to send crafts over 1000 times the distance or greater (where other comets might be) but rather would spend money on analyzing a comet right near by. It saves them money actually and because they have never seen the comet up close its possible that its something besides just a big rock. NASA is full of optimists who think that something amazing to learn could be anywhere in the cosmos so they will take the time to look at anything they can. Waste of time, I don't think so.

  5. From my super smart and beautiful girlfriend dept by roman_mir · · Score: 5, Funny

    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 :)

    --
    You can't handle the truth.