NASA's Deep Impact 314
NivenMK1 writes "The Seattle Times has an interesting article on NASA's plan to nail the comet Tempel 1 with a chunk of copper the size of a bathtub on July 4 this year. This copper 'bullet' is intended to strike the comet at approximately 23,000 mph and hit with a force equivalent to 4.7 tons of TNT.
Scientists hope to discover what exactly the comet is made of and what changes have occurred to the outer layers with reference to the core."
Re:Expensive launch mass? (Score:5, Insightful)
An explosive is normally composed of chemically very reactive components, that can react with each other and the material of the comet, making it very hard to discern what WAS there and what was created by the blast.
Re:Expensive launch mass? (Score:2, Insightful)
23,000 mph (Score:5, Insightful)
Forgot one thing: (Score:5, Insightful)
The impact power of the copper rod is 4+ tonnes of TNT. IF you wanted to double the blast, you would have to send more than 4 tonnes of explosives.
at 30km/s+, the kinetic energy of the material is bigger than the chemical energy of explosives.
The added energy just doesnt matter anymore because it would be difficult to time the blast, plus the softness of the explosives would reduce the impact penetration.
Re:$311 million!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nasa is conducting the experiment precicely BECAUSE nobody know what will happen next. If we knew with certainty what was going to happen, THEN there wouldn't be a very good reason for carrying on with the experiment.
Last year they spent $200 billion blowing up comet Baghdad and we're all still waiting to see how that cliffhanger's going to end! This time it's cheaper and it doens't involve killing anybody.
mnb Re:Maybe next... (Score:1, Insightful)
1.Long time to learn precise trajectory of comet vs. few minutes with missile.
2.One comet (and big at that) vs. multiple warheads and fake warheads x10.
3.Comet is in a microgravity enviroment, bullet could stop and wait for comet vs. warheads - where can you "wait" for warhead? - you would need constant thrust to maintain position.
4.You miss the comet NASA looks bad for a few weeks. vs. you miss the missile - some city looks bad forever.
Uh.... does this strike anybody else as wrong? (Score:4, Insightful)
But isn't this kind of, uh... wrong? Possibily destroying a comet? It seems so destructive to possibly break apart something that's been circling our sun for millions of years.
I understand that comets are more like "dirty snowballs" than things of infinite beauty, and I can definitely understand the scientific reasons for this mission because they're going to get all kinds of data that they couldn't get otherwise.
This seems kind of wrong to me, though.
Re:Uh.... does this strike anybody else as wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you looked out your window recently?
Re:Expensive launch mass? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:$311 million!! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I don't know about you... (Score:1, Insightful)
2004 Election Results [yahoo.com]
Re:Expensive launch mass? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:$311 million!! (Score:5, Insightful)
And I quote:
"If we knew what we were doing it wouldn't be research."
- Albert Einstein
Re:Uh.... does this strike anybody else as wrong? (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, we don't really know everything about the makeup of comets. In fact, that's the whole point of this mission: to find out more about what makes up comets. Our best guesses, based on data gathered during previous flybys and deductive reasoning, indicate that comets are mostly frozen water and some rocks mixed in, but we don't really know because we've never seen the inside of one.
Anyhow, it's not as if we're randomly blasting apart any and every comet that comes our way. We're not nuking Halley's Comet or anything.
As far as the mining issue is concerned, Deep Impact doesn't have anything to do with mining, directly. However, it adds to a body of research which could be used in the future. Even if comets typically don't have much more than water and some rocks, what better way to get a heck of a lot of water to Luna than to figure out a way to divert a comet into a lunar orbit? What if we need to figure out a way to divert/destroy a comet that's coming in too close for comfort? Etc. etc. It's empirical data that could be used in the future. It's not just fireworks, as you seem to be implying.
The intent of my post was not to question your intelligence, but I had to address what seemed to me to be a somewhat short-sighted and unimaginative perspective.
Re:Who Cares? (Score:1, Insightful)
I am from Northen Europe, and I just have to look out the window, to see a better place that America.
dude this is wrong (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:$311 million!! (Score:5, Insightful)
I am sure there is military research aspect in this project too. The ability to hit a comet with a bathtub-sized hunk of metal is probably good practice for hitting an adversary's satellite with a bar of soap-sized hunk of metal.
I highly doubt this is purely civilian science in action.
Re:I don't know about you... (Score:4, Insightful)
A couple years ago, right during the push for the Iraq invasion, I dislocated my shoulder on a train in Northern France(slept on it wrong) and ended up in the E.R. in Nancy-Ville or however the heck it's called. They were sort of amused by my hollering loudly in English ("Americain" one of the guys remarked to his buddy with a chuckle) but my brief stay there dealing with the E.R. doctors and nurses and people around town the next day, they didn't have a huge problem with me being an American who spoke three words of French, and impressed me as being pretty hospitable. Plus, I got a ride to the E.R. in an ambulance, an X-ray, some morphine(weird stuff... you still notice the pain sensations but it doesn't hurt), a relocated shoulder, and a few hours of sleep on a stretcher for, I shit you not, like 100 euros... this would cost easily a couple thousand in the states, without the ambulance ride (I know 'cause I've done this a lot). Socialized medicine, don't knock it till you've tried it.
Re:This is a bad idea. (Score:3, Insightful)
The USA has sold the farm - innovation is what it has left and weird patent laws are trying to kill that too. Experiments such as this are an investment in the future, so if you are worried about the future of the USA you should be behind such things as this. And stop your management getting hold of hard drugs, that's the only thing that can explain a lot of decisions.
Re:This is a bad idea. (Score:2, Insightful)
If you (as a country) spent less time watching "info-mercials" and more time actually learning real history, you would know that Henry Ford is responsible for the introduction of the production line. He didn't invent the car, there were French, German and British inventions way before his car was built.
As for inventing the aeroplane, that is not entirely true either. The wright brothers were credited with the first powered flight, but they built on the work of others in Europe, and there is even some doubt as to whether they were the first to achieve powered flight.
As to the Chrysler/Mercedes Benz thing, you do realise that most of the inventions that "America" is famous for were invented by European immigrants. Names such as Einstein and Werner von Braun spring to mind here.
Add all this to the fact that "American" companies have been taking over the rest of the worlds industries with the almighty dollar for over 40 years and you might realise what the fuss over globalisation is about.
fucking goldfish memory !
Telephone - Alexander Graham Bell - Born in Scotland
Wireless transmission - Guglielmo Marconi - Born in Italy
Manhattan Project - J. Robert Oppenheimer - Born In New York to German Immigrants
Electronic Computer - Konrad Zuse - Born in Germany
Helicopter - SIKORSKY, Igor Ivanovich - Born in Russia
Motorcycle - Gottlieb Daimler - Born in Germany
Bicycle - James Starley - Born in England
Jet airplane - Hans von Ohain - Born in Germany
British
Disc Brakes - Frederick William Lanchester
Tin Can - Peter Durand
Cat Eyes - Percy Shaw
Portland Cement - Joseph Aspdin
Cordite - Sir James Dewar, Sir Frederick Abel
Electric Motor - Michael Faraday
Locomotive - Richard Trevithick
Periscope - Sir Howard Grubb
Polyester - John Rex Whinfield and James Tennant Dickson
Viagra - Peter Dunn, Albert Wood, Dr Nicholas Terrett
Waterproof Fabric - Charles Macintosh
World Wide Web - Tim Berners-Lee