'Your name here' proposed for comet

San Jose Business Journal ^ | May 9, 2003

[HAL9000]

If you've ever wanted your name on a comet, now's your chance.

Pasadena's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NASA plan to send a satellite to crash into a comet in 2005 and aboard the craft will be a CD with the names of perhaps thousands of Earthlings.

The names will be carried on board NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft, the first deep-space mission designed to collide with a comet. Mission scientists are confident an impact on the nucleus of a comet called Tempel 1 will answer basic questions about the nature and composition of these celestial wanderers.

"This is an opportunity to become part of an extraordinary space mission," says Don Yeomans, an astronomer at JPL and a member of Deep Impact's science team. "When the craft is launched in December 2004, yours and the names of your loved-ones can hitch along for the ride and be part of what may be the best space fireworks show in history."

Deep Impact's larger flyby spacecraft will carry a smaller impactor spacecraft to Tempel 1 for release into the comet's path for a planned collision. The flyby spacecraft will take pictures as the 816 pound copper-tipped impactor plunges into Tempel 1 at about 22,990 miles per hour. The impactor is expected to make a spectacular, football field-sized crater, seven to 15 stories deep, in the speeding comet. Carried aboard the impactor will be a standard mini-CD containing the names of comet and space enthusiasts from around the world.

People may submit their names for this historic one-way mission by visiting NASA's Deep Impact Web site, now through February 2004, at deepimpact.jpl.nasa.gov.

The collision between the impactor and Tempel 1 is not forceful enough to make an appreciable change in the comet's orbital path around the sun, NASA says. The comet poses no threat to Earth, NASA says.

[NormsRevenge]

Cool. I nominate Lease Terms Available for the next one. ;-)

or maybe FReeper Bopp

[Blood of Tyrants]

Pasadena's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NASA plan to send a satellite to crash into a comet in 2005 and aboard the craft will be a CD with the names of perhaps thousands of Earthlings.

So the space aliens will come after me? No, thanks! I have managed not to be noticed by them for my entire life and I'm not going to submit my name now.

[Robert DeLong]

Kewl, signed up myself, my wife, and my stepson. Thanks.

[Robert DeLong]

Chicken. LOL

[Aracelis]

Ping!

[just me]

""I have managed not to be noticed by them for my entire life""

Do you wear a tin-foil hat?

[steveo]

So the space aliens will come after me? No, thanks!

I agree. To be safe I gave them my parrot's name: Bob

[N. Theknow]

I just signed up as, "Hi, my name is Robert Byrd. Come and get me you alien dipsticks."

[Joe Hadenuf]

Signed up the entire gang and all the ranch hands from our California hide out.

[IncPen]

Check this out...

[PatrickHenry]

"When the craft is launched in December 2004, yours and the names of your loved-ones can hitch along for the ride and be part of what may be the best space fireworks show in history."

At least it's not one of those "name a star" scams, that charges a fee and promises to put the name in a [worthless] book that will be "registered in the Library of Congress!!!"

[Blood of Tyrants]

No way would I bee seen DEAD in a tin foil hat! (How tacky and common!) I have a nice aluminum collander with a nifty duct tape chin strap, thank you!

[RightWhale]

Japanese spacecraft on four-year journey to bring home asteroid samples

Maybe this MUSES-C news was already posted on FR, and if so, here it is again. If not, here it is.

[just me]

Kool...

[Blood of Tyrants]

The Rats will give them their dogs' names. After all, they already have them registered to vote.

[longshadow]

At least it's not one of those "name a star" scams, that charges a fee and promises to put the name in a [worthless] book that will be "registered in the Library of Congress!!!"

Right you are, PH.

But I do think it is time to broaden the naming conventions for off-planet objects and geography. For example, if scientists discover an immense canyon on another planet, one that is many times larger than, say, the Grand Canyon, instead of naming it after some obscure 18th century scientists whose name no one can pronounce, it would be more fitting to use a contemporary figure to characterize such a vast, deep, and immense rift: I propose it be named "Hillary's Ass"....

I now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.....

[Aracelis]

Remember your good breeding and cultured lifestyle, dear friend. It would be..."Hillary's Arse".

[Aracelis]

If I might offer, Patrick...perhaps that is why you remain, shall we say, "unattached". The romantic side of you is looking a bit anemic. lol

[PatrickHenry]

The romantic side of you is looking a bit anemic.

That is one of the disadvantages of this medium in which we find ourselves. My dashing, swashbuckling nature somehow fails to come through.