Posted on 07/03/2005 6:32:52 AM PDT by FreedomNeocon
I'll watch, but no one can convince me that this needed to be done.
LOL
Actually it sounded like a lame idea at the time, but it has a degree of difficulty. I would have gone for a lander.
Bttt.
This is a CIA plot...the comet's course will be altered..it will strike the Earth, landing atop the Three Gorges Dam in Red China....shattering it...
That's #6 on the list of topics.
Also, the engineering involved with hitting a moving target this small will yield great knowledge and experience.
Keep in mind that when you don't have to send a strutting cock-o-the-walk for his celebrity thrill ride, you can get a lot more bang for your exploration buck. This crate doesn't have to come home and get a tickertape parade to get the job done and that makes it cheap.
So BUZZ has to showboat this party, too...I guess he's a perennial face, like Geraldo. Maybe he can sign Buzz Lightyear dolls when he's through.
Don't hold back. You may want to tell us what you REALLY think about the Manned Space Program.
FWIW, I do agree with some of your criticism, but the early programs. including the Moon Landings, were worth the effort and the prestige it brought to the US.
The ISS - I don't know?
For some reason, your reply reminded me of that Bugs Bunny Christopher Columbus sketch.
RazzPutin, thanks for the interesting reading.... Here's a link to view the comet temple 1 updated every 45 seconds in the hour before and after impact:
http://www.noao.edu/news/deep-impact/
Well, if it's any consolation to you, I'm making a big pot of bolognese sauce..
The names of more than 600,000 people will be part of the fireworks July 3-4 when Comet Tempel 1 collides with the Deep Impact impactor spacecraft.
When Deep Impact was in its final stages of development, organizers in NASA's Education and Public Outreach program created the Send Your Name to a Comet campaign. The Internet-based effort allowed participants to sign their name up for destruction and print out an official certificate documenting their place on the list.
Although people could submit their names between May 2003 and January 2004, a large number waited until the last minute to sign up.
"In the end they were trying to sign up so fast that it was almost more than the system could take," Roundtree-Brown said. "In all we got about 625,000 names. It was a surprise."
Once the registration closed, the list was burned onto a mini-CD and attached to the spacecraft -- tucked under the thermal blanketing to make sure no harm could come to it.
"It will be vaporized along with the impactor," Roundtree-Brown said.
I got in early and added my entire family to the project. I even included my dogs name!
maybe I was wrong when I accused you of knowing everything......you surely missed out on this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifugal_force
this applies to changing the weight of the comet as well as changing weights of all orbiting objects, with or without strings attached :)
I still say it wound be wiser to have chosen a comet not integral to our solar system, given the (admittedly small) chance that its mass might be altered sufficient to alter the orbit.
BTW, do you actually bother to type that first line of each of your posts, or do you have some doo-dad that does it automatically?
Grrrrrr......I guess I know what I'm fixing Tuesday.
I'm HERE! Thanks for that ping. This is really an historic first.
Now that really makes no sense,....I hope it didn't cost much!
"Yeah, I sent your name in to NASA ... whaddabout it?!"
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