ConqueringWolf
Admiral
Merry Meet And Merry Part, Until We Merry Meet Again!
Posts: 5,461
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Post by ConqueringWolf on Jan 12, 2005 21:02:31 GMT -5
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - A NASA (news - web sites) spacecraft with a Hollywood name — Deep Impact — blasted off Wednesday on a mission to smash a hole in a comet and give scientists a glimpse of the frozen primordial ingredients of the solar system. With a launch window only one second long, Deep Impact rocketed away at the designated moment on a six-month, 268-million-mile journey to Comet Tempel 1. It will be a one-way trip that NASA hopes will reach a cataclysmic end on the Fourth of July. "We are on our way," said an excited Michael A'Hearn of the University of Maryland, the mission's chief scientist. Minutes later, the spacecraft shot out of Earth's orbit and onto its collision course. "We'll be there July Fourth," NASA launch director Omar Baez said. Scientists are counting on Deep Impact to carve out a crater in Comet Tempel 1 that could swallow the Roman Coliseum. It will be humans' first look into the heart of a comet, a celestial snowball still containing the original building blocks of the sun and the planets. story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=6&u=/ap/20050112/ap_on_sc/comet_buster_10
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oblivion
Admiral
Keeper of the Chapa'i
Posts: 1,844
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Post by oblivion on Jan 14, 2005 12:18:44 GMT -5
I read this with a mixture of excitement and concern. Excitement because studying this comet gives us a chance to go back in time and learn more about the composition and conditions of the earliest period in our star system's development. Concern because basically "we" (humanity) are gonna go smash something "to see what's inside", "to see what happens", etc. I'm not a big fate versus free will debater, but that comet has been circling our sun for a few billion years. It's like part of a clock. Who knows what pieces of this system are essential to all others? Who knows where that piece of ice is "meant" to wind up one day. Who knows what the effect of it's ultimate "intended" destination based on it's orbital path and decay. This is unrelated (except for the part about "let's see what happens") but I read several years ago about the discovery of the Van Allen Belts in 1958. "Hey there's a weird layer of atmosphere up there. It lets some energies in from space but not back out!" Before cogitating on what might be the effects of such a layer and how it might play into the workings of the planet, sombody or somebodies decided to just "see what happens". The U.S. military did a fission bomb test the same year the Van Allen Belts were discovered. They detonated the bomb up in the Van Allen Belt over the south Atlantic Ocean just to see what happened. What happened? the radiation from that bomb didn't dissipate in a few days as expected. It lasted for about a year. And satellites that were launched during that time got FRIED before they reached orbit. They were worthless. We'll never know what other effects the detonatin had on the Van Allen Belts because we CHANGED them before we studied them. So my thoughts about this comet experiement are...if the only way to find out what's inside a comet at this point in time due to our space technology and robotic technology limitations is to blow a hole in it big enough to insert a stadium (heck we may split it into a gazillion pieces), maybe we should wait until we have better tools that allow us to learn the same information with less destruction and fewer unknown risks. Since it's gonna happen unless something goes wrong before then, I'll definitely keep this in mind on July 4. You've seen one fireworks display, you've seen them all Here's a website with info about the 1958 Van Allen Belt experiment www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/envronmt/weapons.htm
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ConqueringWolf
Admiral
Merry Meet And Merry Part, Until We Merry Meet Again!
Posts: 5,461
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Post by ConqueringWolf on Jan 15, 2005 10:42:54 GMT -5
I understand that there will be risks in doing something like this....fortunately at least this thing is far away and won;t do any immediate damage to us or anything....and while we should worry about possible consequnces...I also feel this test will be well worth the effort and could provide us with lots of useful info in the future....I don't think there will ever be a way to get a chunk of a comet without doing what we are doing now. There is also another side benefit to this....if we can hit this thing wxactly as we think we will...this could provide us with possible defenses against an asteroid or comet which could threaten to hit us in the future.
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UberChad
Lieutenant
My Happy Place
Posts: 164
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Post by UberChad on Jan 22, 2005 19:08:39 GMT -5
I understand that there will be risks in doing something like this....fortunately at least this thing is far away and won;t do any immediate damage to us or anything....and while we should worry about possible consequnces...I also feel this test will be well worth the effort and could provide us with lots of useful info in the future....I don't think there will ever be a way to get a chunk of a comet without doing what we are doing now. There is also another side benefit to this....if we can hit this thing exactly as we think we will...this could provide us with possible defenses against an asteroid or comet which could threaten to hit us in the future. I agree, there isnt anything wrong with looking into how comets/ asteroids work. Especially if we can prevent being hit by one. Contributeing, ¤U.C.¤
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xkamelx
Global Moderator
Check Those Corners
Posts: 11,108
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Post by xkamelx on Jan 24, 2005 8:29:24 GMT -5
I don't think it is a matter of "if", but a matter of "when".
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