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[whytemyke]

Maybe it's just me, but, uh... hm.
Here's my link.... hope it works.

Anyways, here are the main points.

LOS ANGELES - Not all dazzling fireworks displays will be on Earth this Independence Day. NASA hopes to shoot off its own celestial sparks in an audacious mission that will blast a stadium-sized hole in a comet half the size of Manhattan. It would give astronomers their first peek at the inside of one of these heavenly bodies.

If all goes as planned, the Deep Impact spacecraft will release a wine barrel-sized probe on a suicide journey, hurtling toward the comet Tempel 1 - about 80 million miles away from Earth at the time of impact.

The Deep Impact spacecraft shares the same name as a 1998 Hollywood disaster movie about a comet headed straight for Earth. NASA says that the names for the space mission and blockbuster movie were arrived at independently around the same time and by pure coincidence.

Hm. Just a few things I'm wondering here.
1) With all the bad press revolving around the space industry lately, is this really a good plan? I mean, I LOVE space studies, and think it is absolutely vital to science. HOWEVER... is spending over 300 million dollars to send a probe smashing into a comet 20 million miles away so we can see whats in the inside really that necessary at this juncture? I mean, we're questioning whether we'll even get the ISS done. This is the equivalent to someone saying "Well, yeah, we COULD study when an earthquake will go off in America, but instead, how about we build a machine to throw this marble really really hard at this rock-- sending the marble from texas to kansas-- and see if it'll break open the rock!" Oh well.

2) Is it just me or is it a REALLY BAD IDEA to name a spaceship designed to crash into an asteroid after a movie which involved a spaceship crashing into an asteroid before the asteroid crashed into earth and killed everyone in any major city on the eastern seaboard? Now, I totally believe that the names were decided separately. However, this is right up there with me launching an airline called 9/11 Airlines. This has "Bad Omen" written all over it.

 

[ManaByte]

Hm. Just a few things I'm wondering here.
1) With all the bad press revolving around the space industry lately, is this really a good plan? I mean, I LOVE space studies, and think it is absolutely vital to science. HOWEVER... is spending over 300 million dollars to send a probe smashing into a comet 20 million miles away so we can see whats in the inside really that necessary at this juncture? I mean, we're questioning whether we'll even get the ISS done. This is the equivalent to someone saying "Well, yeah, we COULD study when an earthquake will go off in America, but instead, how about we build a machine to throw this marble really really hard at this rock-- sending the marble from texas to kansas-- and see if it'll break open the rock!" Oh well.

So...you want NASA to study earthquakes instead of stuff in space...?

 

[The Shadow]

1) Smashing the comet will reveal a lot about how the early solar system was like. As a matter of fact, it's probably the only reasonable way to do it, aside from spending billions of dollars and waiting decades to get a probe out to the fringe of the solar system where there is still remnants of the early solar system left.

2) The name is descriptive of the mission. The movie is relatively forgotten as well. I doubt it'll be that big of a deal that they share the same name.

 

[Polari]

2) Is it just me or is it a REALLY BAD IDEA to name a spaceship designed to crash into an asteroid after a movie which involved a spaceship crashing into an asteroid before the asteroid crashed into earth and killed everyone in any major city on the eastern seaboard? Now, I totally believe that the names were decided separately. However, this is right up there with me launching an airline called 9/11 Airlines. This has "Bad Omen" written all over it.

No, no, no. All this demonstrates is that NASA's engineers actually have, y'know, A SENSE OF HUMOUR. (*SHOCK*, *GASP*)

No one was killed by Deep Impact, despite its suckiness, so it's nothing AT ALL like naming an airline "9/11 Airlines".

 

[Incognito]

Guys, please, let's wait for Olimario's indepth explanation on all this before we jump the gun, mmk?

 

[whytemyke]

First off Shadow, if you want in-depth knowledge of the 'early' solar system, you don't have to perform something as unlikely to succeed as this. You could feasibly go and put a drill on the moon, or Mars and dig as deep as you can and get the same kind of information. I'm not familiar with the geological structure of mars (submantle material) so I'm not saying against all else that we should drill ON MARS, but the point is still the same. Plus, since we've already landed stuff on Mars, I'm pretty sure we could land more stuff on Mars, so that ups our success rate right off the bat.

And Dirty, you still get the gist of what I'm saying. Maybe not 9/11 Airlines, but the idea is still there.

 

[Dan]

I really don't think NASA should be worried about its project names being omens of any kind.

 

[Deku]

whytemyke do you know anything about space exploration or do you care? Your post makes no sense.

 

[Ash Housewares]

I don't know that it's a bad idea, but everything JPL does ends in disaster

 

[whytemyke]

whytemyke do you know anything about space exploration or do you care? Your post makes no sense.

Uh, I know more about the shit than most, and the post makes perfect sense if you know how to read. Here... I'll spell it out for those, like you, who can't keep up:

THIS IS A WASTED MISSION. WITH A STUPID NAME.

NASA needs to divert all naming to the Pentagon. Operation Cosmic Firework would sound wayyyy cooler than "The Deep Impact mission..."

 

[ManaByte]

First off Shadow, if you want in-depth knowledge of the 'early' solar system, you don't have to perform something as unlikely to succeed as this. You could feasibly go and put a drill on the moon

No you can't. Our moon wasn't formed at the same time as the early solar system.

, or Mars and dig as deep as you can and get the same kind of information. I'm not familiar with the geological structure of mars (submantle material) so I'm not saying against all else that we should drill ON MARS, but the point is still the same. Plus, since we've already landed stuff on Mars, I'm pretty sure we could land more stuff on Mars, so that ups our success rate right off the bat.

Again, same thing as the moon. With that frame of logic you can just drill into the Earth for the same result; but you can't because you don't know what you're talking about.

 

[The Shadow]

First off Shadow, if you want in-depth knowledge of the 'early' solar system, you don't have to perform something as unlikely to succeed as this. You could feasibly go and put a drill on the moon, or Mars and dig as deep as you can and get the same kind of information. I'm not familiar with the geological structure of mars (submantle material) so I'm not saying against all else that we should drill ON MARS, but the point is still the same. Plus, since we've already landed stuff on Mars, I'm pretty sure we could land more stuff on Mars, so that ups our success rate right off the bat.

You're absolutely right dude. It's a shame that you're posting here instead of running NASA. It's so fucking unfair.

 

[={<SMOKE>}=]

i call bullshit. they're blowing up that comet that they announced was gonna hit the earth a few years back.

not sure if any of you remember this, but one day it was all over the news that nasa has announced that a comet is going to collide with earth in something like 20 years. then a little later in the day they said they were wrong and it's only a possibility. by the time the evening news aired, they said they were wrong and there is no comet heading towards earth. they lied...

there sending this fucker up there to blow that comet up and changes its path. deep impact indeed.

 

[ManaByte]

i call bullshit. they're blowing up that comet that they announced was gonna hit the earth a few years back.

not sure if any of you remember this, but one day it was all over the news that nasa has announced that a comet is going to collide with earth in something like 20 years. then a little later in the day they said they were wrong and it's only a possibility. by the time the evening news aired, they said they were wrong and there is no comet heading towards earth. they lied...

there sending this fucker up there to blow that comet up and changes its path. deep impact indeed.

Uh...this comet is 80 million miles from Earth.

You're thinking of an asteroid they said would be a sure hit in 29 years, it's since been revised to a near miss.

 

[={<SMOKE>}=]

Uh...this comet is 80 million miles from Earth.

You're thinking of an asteroid they said would be a sure hit in 29 years, it's since been revised to a near miss.

it's all lies and cover-ups mana...

 

[Koopa]

Terrorists new plan is to use celestial turds to shite on america. George Bush wants to be prepared :lol :lol :lol

 

[BuddyC]

I can't believe we're doing this again.

 

[xsarien]

2) Is it just me or is it a REALLY BAD IDEA to name a spaceship designed to crash into an asteroid after a movie which involved a spaceship crashing into an asteroid before the asteroid crashed into earth and killed everyone in any major city on the eastern seaboard? Now, I totally believe that the names were decided separately. However, this is right up there with me launching an airline called 9/11 Airlines. This has "Bad Omen" written all over it.

Deep Impact is a mediocre movie. 9/11, The Titanic, Columbia, and Challenger are all real.

There's nothing wrong with the name.

 

[Hitokage]

whytemyke: It's nice that you're interested in this, but not so nice how you leap to unfounded conclusions. The objective here is to see just what is inside a comet, and by extension some of what was in the raw material that was around BEFORE the planets were made. Going to Mars will only tell you what ended up on Mars. Furthermore, actual hard evidence always trumps speculation. Sure, we can get a pretty good idea of this stuff already, but it'll never be as good as the actual thing should the opportunity exist.

BTW, superstition isn't worth considering when conducting a scientific experiment.

 

[Fowler]

I can't believe someone else is trying to convince ManaByte there's a conspiracy theory afoot. What's GAF coming to?!

 

[fart]

the only valid point you have is whether we should be putting money into the experiment when there are so many other issues at hand. i would argue that this should be seen as very very close to putting money directly into science, which is a good idea (and i think from your post history you agree with this one). now, if we're talking about whether nasa should sink any of their constrained budget into new projects or not... that's quite a bit more complicated, and i'm pretty sure none of us are familiar enough with nasa's political issues to know whether this particular project deserves any slice of the nasa budget, considering what's kicking around right now and how much money there is to go around.