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NASA: Return to Mercury and Comet Harpooning
McSnickered writes "This BBC article has some great information about NASA's upcoming plans to shoot a harpoon into a comet in 2004. " My thought has always been that whales and such are too small. No, a crater the size of a football field on a comet. That's cool.
I agree. Rather than spending a small portion of our tax $$$ on research to understand our universe, we could spend the millions we'd save watching sweaty males and females kick/hit/throw balls to each other and buying their products- a much greater benefit to society.
And how I miss the 60's & early 70's before much of the research from Apollo when into the public. No confusing 200+ channels of TV, just 13. You didn't have to worry about travel because you had to take a loan out to fly anywhere - I really enjoyed going Greyhound. Stock market in the low 1000's, the luxury '71 Toyota Corolla we bought because you couldn't get gas for a larger car. I could go on but I'm starting to get teary-eyed.
A better article can be found at NASA. If that doesn't work check out the list of press releases.
Some cool facts. There will be no harpooning of the comet. A 1100lb (yes, 500kg) copper projectile (or impactor, as it is called here at Ball) into the comet, to measure the constituents of the debris and find out what makes up the interior of a comet. None of the copper tipped bullet, that the article aludes too. Imagine slamming a 500kg projectile into the surface of the comet!
This particular project (called Deep Impact, BTW) is about $240million. My company, Ball Aerospace, is contracted to build it. Our part I guess is $200million. This comes at just the right time when people are scrapping for work. This is the first time we will build an inter-planetary spacecraft, so it will certainly be exciting.
I don't know much about the Messenger project. Check the press release mentioned above for more.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Richard von Weizs
These spacecraft are part of the Discovery class of spacecraft. This was started to achieve the "faster, better, cheaper" goal that Dan Goldin has preached about. The total cost of Discovery missions cannot be more than $299million which is a far cry from the billion plus dollar pricetags of the huge inter-planetary spacecraft missions from a few years ago (Cassini, Mar Observer, etc.).
The actual price tag of Mercury is $286million and for Deep Impact $240million. Check out the press release.
It's exciting that these scientific missions, with advanced technology, can be accomplished with money that is less than the earnings of many blockbuster movies.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Richard von Weizs
Cable snapping? I think the harpoon is just a projectile, no cable attached. Looks like the idea is to get readings on the material buried in the comet (unchanged since the beginning of the solar system blah blah).
What are the possibilities as far as using this method to help get us around the solar system quicker? Wait for a comet to pass, harpoon it and hitch a ride to the extremeties much quicker than we currently can. Or am I dreaming again?
Glenn
The Smrt way to trade CFDs on the ASX
Zilch...It'll help us get to heaven/hell/purgatory faster.
5 bux says it splits: one piece the "size of Texas" and another the size of Hawaii and they both change trajectories and head towards earth. Unfortunately, Bruce & company will be in wheelchairs and we'll be doomed.
-CrayZFoogle
P.S. To that lovely blonde in the blue bikini I saw when seadooing Sunday in Chestermere: LET ME BE YOUR SLAVE!
Check out some pictures of the Deep Impact mission including a model of the spacecraft and impactor. Nothing revealing, but interesting. Imagine the pictures from the high resolution camera on the impactor as it hits the comet.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Richard von Weizs
I hope they take extra precautions to not hit the alien space ship behind the comet, oh wait, that was the LAST comet. Sorry
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
Arrhhh maties!!! Thar she blows - the white comet!
In a later interview with the Outer Orbital Objects Association (pronounced oowhaa!), spokes comet CM-342 assured earthlings that "we have no intention whatsoever of impacting the surface of your planet. I mean, really, there's no need to get your knickers in a knot. Most of the members don't even like orbiting close to the sun; to hot, much to hot."
... unfortunate ... to happen, see?"
The Liberation Coalition for Free Floating Asteroids (LCFFA) denied any future plans for impact. "As long as we all respect each other's soverenty, and territory, there'd be no reason for anything
Interstellar gasses could not be reached for comment.
;)
Michael Gentili
- He's just some guy, you know?
Perhaps, my friend, that may be leaping to a conclusion. For all the talk of "dirty snowballs" (doesn't that sound like it should be vulgar?) we aren't sure what lurks inside the comets, our favorite slushies from the Oort cloud. Remember that if we wanted to piss off Europe, we would just nuke Luxemburg. We could do it in about three hours.
Secondly, there will be no cabeling. We are not attemting to bring the comet in so that we can harvest it to feed the tribe-we are trying to make an explosion to spray comet stuff all over. You were right in that we don't have anything that could stand up to the force of impact. The harpoon will be destroyed, as something going at 10,000 m/s at 500,000 g of mass would have 2.5 * 10^10 Joules of energy, roughly enough to launch my last girlfriend at 1,118,468,146 miles an hour (1,800,000,000 kph). The whole point, as I said, is to make a big explosion, which I feel justifies itself.
How are they going to fire that, then? It must be self-propelled: if you fired it from the main craft, the reaction would send the main craft backwards quite fast.
ac.uk.
Is there something you're not telling us? (grin)
Hehe. Reminds me of the Futurama theme park
...
We're whalers of the moon
I'm glad someone's paying attention. Actually, it would appear that I dropped a decimal. She actually weighed about 300 g: I've been doing the interracial (human/faerie folk) dating thing for a while now. I tell you, it's a pain when you date tries to pick you up in a wagon pulled by mice.
a 2 pound harpoon is not going to propell a 3 ton craft very far no matter how fast it's shot from the gun
throw your cable, and hang on for dear life!
Why? because we can..
Bah, seemed funny at the time! ;)
That would suck.
Asked about the purpose of Deep Impact, Ed Weiler said: "The mission was inspired by the movie of the same name." In 'Deep Impact', released last summer, a huge asteroid threatens to destroy all life on earth, and the protagonists are forced to develop and execute a last-minute plan to destroy the deadly space projectile. "We want to do better than that. We want to strike first, to make sure a real-life 'Deep Impact' can never happen."
Ed elaborated, saying "This is a preventative action. It's our way of sending a message to the comets in our solar system. That message is that we can, and will, destroy any solar body which threatens us." If this message goes unheeded and comets, asteroids, and other phenomena continue to travel in our solar system, the second phase of the project, coded 'Armageddon', will commence with the purpose of "blowing the comets to hell."
"I hope it doesn't come to that. I hope we can live in peace with our celestial neighbors. But to prevent them from attacking en masse, we must let them know that if we are to be destroyed then they will be destroyed as well."
The enemies of Democracy are
World New York
Wordnik, a dictionary project which aims to collect
An when has that stopped any US government/entity? We've been in debt... how long? Has anyone been interested in sending people in the Space Shuttle? I think most people are bored with it. The interest can be gained through the usual propaganda by telling everyone how the information gained will help science and could be a pre-emtive measure in case one is headed for us. If they can't get the money with tax they'll sell our kids drugs!
To be free, think free.
It mentions that term a couple times, anyone got a pricetag?
BTW, seems like a pretty cool thing to me, if they need anybody with razor sharp simulation aiming skills, I volunteer.
+&x
Just two examples.
In your description of Lucifer's Hammer, you didn't mention all the practical info -- like how to make land mines out of shotgun shells.
:)
Please moderate this post down to -2. Thanks!
Geeky modern art T-shirts
... that will be cut because of lack of $$$s and interests of the tax payers.
I need one of these, is it banned?
I saw this in a booth at the last JPL open house - pretty cool stuff. A little telemetry probe, about the size of a large coffee can, sidles up and lands on the comet. It then fires a metal spike down through its center and into the comet's crust, anchoring it. Pretty simple from the way they explained it - just hope it works the first time.
Two other great SF books are The Sparrow and The Lost Children (?), its sequel by Maria Doria Russell. It is SF, but mixed with religion, philosophy etc., and with a bit of SETI and AI thrown in. Two of the best books I have read in a long time.
Why on earth would NASA want to harpoon a comet? This is so cheap. I'm willing to bet the only reason nasa came forward with this plan was due to how much they were getting dogged re: european astronauts planning to land on a comet.
And just another quick insightful thought.. What the fuck are they going to use for cabling? If they dont miss the comet (ya proboally will only get one chance at the speed it's moving), what's to say that the minute you harpoon it that the cabling wouldn't snap? I mean come on, please, lets be a little bit more realistic nasa.
-kaitlin r. silver
http://illusion.org
This isn't... er, rocket science ya know. You can calculate how much tension a cable must exert between the asteroid and the probe. You can calculate when to fire the cable in order to hit it.
The guys at NASA aren't stupid.
or a rubberband. First tie this to the diffrent parts of the comet. Then blow it apart using a large bomb (TM). The sit on the rubber and be catapulted towards the universe !
I remember reading an article not too long ago, that NASA was planning on send a 6 inch version of pathfinder to a comet to collect data and samples. It would "Hop" around the comet to map it, and also collect some chunks for scientiic study.
I can see it already...
NASA Corners The Bottled Water Market With "EtherH2O"!!
only 25 million dollars a bottle.
i work at jhuapl ( johns hopkins applied physics lab ) and we're the one behind the messenger project. everyone here was pretty excited that we got the project. we had another project ( aladin ) which was almost like the comet harpooning ( we were going to collect samples from one of mar's moons ), but that one didn't get selected.
I have a good friend/old drinking buddy from my grad school days that now works for NASA supervising the making of craters! The last time I visited his lab, he had this real nice rail gun that shot high velocity projectiles at a target. The propellant was gunpowder that was stuffed into condoms! Or as he politely puts it we load gunpowder into a shell or other receptacle He said that getting the condoms (in bulk of course), initially raised some eyebrows in the government purchasing office.
Here's the web site. that describes the lab.
Ain't science great!
BTW, the study of impact craters is important to understanding many aspect of planetary science and other topics like why the dinosaurs died. I know that Bruce Willis would agree with me on this.
Awesome book. A must read.
Don't forget the cannibals.