Deep Impact Mission May Be Extended

SeaDour writes "The famous Deep Impact mission, which in 2005 launched a projectile in the path of comet Tempel 1, may be extended by NASA. The proposal is to slingshot the probe around the Earth as it passes by at the end of this year, putting it on a trajectory to reach comet Boethin in December 2008. Scientists want to see if the strange composition and behavior of Tempel 1 is more common than they had previously assumed. (The probe only had one projectile though, so we will not see another brilliant man-made explosion on this comet.) Additionally, while the probe is en route to the comet, researchers will point its on-board telescope at known exosolar planets to determine the compositions of their atmospheres."

Comments

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

[whatme]

I think examples of this are what we should petition congress to INCREASE funding for NASA. The simple fact is NASA has developed a culture to maximize their return on projects (and succeeding). Give them some more funds to accomplish the additional programs they have backlogged. If they can continue this culture, we all benefit.

Too bad the rest of the government can't follow this lead.

Re:Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

[Nyeerrmm]

I'd point out that this is the science side of NASA (Jet Propulsion Labs [JPL] in particular.) Working with both JPL and JSC (more involved in the high budget manned missions) for space mission design classes, JPL has always been much better about staying on budget, and doing more with less. Also they're less egotistical and seem to actually enjoy and appreciate working with students.

Obviously some of that is that manned missions are by necessity much more expensive, however, it's been my experience that there are also cultural issues. JSC sees itself as the crown jewels of NASA and behaves as such, spending more than necessary and generally looking down their noses at other facilities (I've heard stories of middle managers at JSC telling administrators of other facilities, who are brilliant PhDs that it might be too complicated for someone not at JSC.)

That said I do applaud the guys at JPL for this wonderful use, and do hope they get some of their money back after they got robbed to pay for Return to Flight and Constellation.

Sounds like a porn plot...

[posterlogo]

"Deep Impact Mission May Be Extended"

Just think about it for a second...

Sooo....

[Hawthorne01]

putting it on a trajectory to reach comet Boethin in December 2008

But it's out of projectiles, and won't blow up anything, so this time, many Boethins WON'T die to give us this information.

/me ducks. ;-p

If they are successful...

[Null Nihils]

...putting it on a trajectory to reach comet Boethin in December 2008. ... (The probe only had one projectile though, so we will not see another brilliant man-made explosion on this comet.)

That's too bad... otherwise NASA's leaders would be telling us "many Boethins died to bring us this information".

Conserve our angular momentum

[isaac]

Now is the time for all good Americans to stand up and say "NO!" to the political hacks at NASA (appointed by the criminal Bush regime) who want to steal Earth's precious angular momentum. And for what? A so-called scientific mission costing millions of dollars? There are millions of starving children on Earth, and they can't eat spectroscopic data!

Using a gravitational slingshot around the Earth to accelerate this craft puts every human being on Earth at risk of falling space junk! And slowing Earth's orbit around the sun will lengthen our year - and you know what that means. Yep, more global warming, as more sunshine will reach Earth every year after this spacecraft passes.

No! We must speak up and not allow this mission to proceed! Not in our name!

-Isaac

They needed more ammo

[airship]

They should have put a bitchin' bad multi-barrel probe launcher on that thing. Or maybe a machine-gun belt full of them.

See, this is why NASA should hire gamers to design their space probes.