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NASA: Return to Mercury and Comet Harpooning

Posted by Hemos on from the fun-with-sharp-objects dept.

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.

2 of 50 comments (clear)

  1. Mutually Assured Astronomy by Chris+Burke · · Score: 4

    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
  2. Big bang in Houston by craw · · Score: 4

    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.