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Science

NASA: Return to Mercury and Comet Harpooning 50

Posted by Hemos from the fun-with-sharp-objects dept.
McSnickered writes "This BBC article has some great information about NASA's upcoming plans to shoot a harpoon into a comet in 2004. " My thought has always been that whales and such are too small. No, a crater the size of a football field on a comet. That's cool.
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NASA: Return to Mecury and Comet Harpooning More

NASA: Return to Mecury and Comet Harpooning

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  • A better article can be found at NASA [nasa.gov]. If that doesn't work check out the list of press releases [nasa.gov].

    Some cool facts. There will be no harpooning of the comet. A 1100lb (yes, 500kg) copper projectile (or impactor, as it is called here at Ball) into the comet, to measure the constituents of the debris and find out what makes up the interior of a comet. None of the copper tipped bullet, that the article aludes too. Imagine slamming a 500kg projectile into the surface of the comet!

    This particular project (called Deep Impact, BTW) is about $240million. My company, Ball Aerospace [ballaerospace.com], is contracted to build it. Our part I guess is $200million. This comes at just the right time when people are scrapping for work. This is the first time we will build an inter-planetary spacecraft, so it will certainly be exciting.

    I don't know much about the Messenger project. Check the press release mentioned above for more.


    ~afniv
    "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
  • These spacecraft are part of the Discovery [nasa.gov] class of spacecraft. This was started to achieve the "faster, better, cheaper" goal that Dan Goldin has preached about. The total cost of Discovery missions cannot be more than $299million which is a far cry from the billion plus dollar pricetags of the huge inter-planetary spacecraft missions from a few years ago (Cassini, Mar Observer, etc.).

    The actual price tag of Mercury is $286million and for Deep Impact $240million. Check out the press release [nasa.gov].

    It's exciting that these scientific missions, with advanced technology, can be accomplished with money that is less than the earnings of many blockbuster movies.

    ~afniv
    "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
  • Cable snapping? I think the harpoon is just a projectile, no cable attached. Looks like the idea is to get readings on the material buried in the comet (unchanged since the beginning of the solar system blah blah).
  • What are the possibilities as far as using this method to help get us around the solar system quicker? Wait for a comet to pass, harpoon it and hitch a ride to the extremeties much quicker than we currently can. Or am I dreaming again?
  • Nope. When you consider that the period of Halley's Comet is 76 years (and that's one of the quicker ones), that doesn't seem like it'd be real practical to me.

    Meow
  • Check out some pictures of the Deep Impact mission [ball.com] including a model of the spacecraft and impactor. Nothing revealing, but interesting. Imagine the pictures from the high resolution camera on the impactor as it hits the comet.

    ~afniv
    "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
  • Okay... here I go again blabbering on about stuff I have no clue about, but anyways... Do we even know where Halley's goes off to? I'd assume it'd only take it 38 years or so to get there though anyways. But what if you harpoon onto the comet, and then retract the harpoon real fast before releasing it, catapulting yourself on from the comet. No resistance and all that up there, wouldn't you then be travelling x times faster than the comet was originally travelling?
  • I hope they take extra precautions to not hit the alien space ship behind the comet, oh wait, that was the LAST comet. Sorry
  • In a later interview with the Outer Orbital Objects Association (pronounced oowhaa!), spokes comet CM-342 assured earthlings that "we have no intention whatsoever of impacting the surface of your planet. I mean, really, there's no need to get your knickers in a knot. Most of the members don't even like orbiting close to the sun; to hot, much to hot."

    The Liberation Coalition for Free Floating Asteroids (LCFFA) denied any future plans for impact. "As long as we all respect each other's soverenty, and territory, there'd be no reason for anything ... unfortunate ... to happen, see?"

    Interstellar gasses could not be reached for comment.

    ;)
  • Do we even know where Halley's goes off to?

    Of course. It is a well-known elliptical orbit.

    what if you harpoon onto the comet, and then retract the harpoon real fast before releasing it, catapulting yourself on from the comet. No resistance and all that up there, wouldn't you then be travelling x times faster than the comet was originally travelling?

    First, you'll have real trouble finding harpoons and wire strong enough for what you are suggesting. Do that and you can get some speed the way you suggest though. Not that it is a smart move - that retracting motion you need will need a lot of power, you might as well use that power for jumping off the surface of the moon. The comet won't necessarily make much difference.

  • Perhaps, my friend, that may be leaping to a conclusion. For all the talk of "dirty snowballs" (doesn't that sound like it should be vulgar?) we aren't sure what lurks inside the comets, our favorite slushies from the Oort cloud. Remember that if we wanted to piss off Europe, we would just nuke Luxemburg. We could do it in about three hours.

    Secondly, there will be no cabeling. We are not attemting to bring the comet in so that we can harvest it to feed the tribe-we are trying to make an explosion to spray comet stuff all over. You were right in that we don't have anything that could stand up to the force of impact. The harpoon will be destroyed, as something going at 10,000 m/s at 500,000 g of mass would have 2.5 * 10^10 Joules of energy, roughly enough to launch my last girlfriend at 1,118,468,146 miles an hour (1,800,000,000 kph). The whole point, as I said, is to make a big explosion, which I feel justifies itself.
  • Thanks for the link. Maybe they should make blockbuster movies about the making of the spacecraft, to cover the costs, you see. At least the tech. would be accurate, although my guess is the acting, and hot chick quotient would suffer.
  • Hey, if the wire was strong enough, you might as well build a space elevator with it ...
  • Hehe. Reminds me of the Futurama theme park

    We're whalers of the moon ...

  • I'm glad someone's paying attention. Actually, it would appear that I dropped a decimal. She actually weighed about 300 g: I've been doing the interracial (human/faerie folk) dating thing for a while now. I tell you, it's a pain when you date tries to pick you up in a wagon pulled by mice.
  • I wonder if they've hired Japanese fishermen as consultants on this project? :)

    Bah, seemed funny at the time! ;)

  • Mutually Assured Astronomy (Score:4)

    by Chris Burke ( 6130 ) on Monday July 12, 1999 @03:11PM (#1806698) Homepage
    Asked about the purpose of Deep Impact, Ed Weiler said: "The mission was inspired by the movie of the same name." In 'Deep Impact', released last summer, a huge asteroid threatens to destroy all life on earth, and the protagonists are forced to develop and execute a last-minute plan to destroy the deadly space projectile. "We want to do better than that. We want to strike first, to make sure a real-life 'Deep Impact' can never happen."

    Ed elaborated, saying "This is a preventative action. It's our way of sending a message to the comets in our solar system. That message is that we can, and will, destroy any solar body which threatens us." If this message goes unheeded and comets, asteroids, and other phenomena continue to travel in our solar system, the second phase of the project, coded 'Armageddon', will commence with the purpose of "blowing the comets to hell."

    "I hope it doesn't come to that. I hope we can live in peace with our celestial neighbors. But to prevent them from attacking en masse, we must let them know that if we are to be destroyed then they will be destroyed as well."
  • For the record, and immediately off topic, the best fiction ever written about large foreign matter smashing into the Earth is "Lucifer's Hammer" by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. I highly recommend it. Drama, scientific accuracy, commies, astronauts, violence, floods, etc. Easily beats anyting you've seen on screen, and brings back some of the scary vibes from the Seventies.

    World New York [worldnewyork.com]

  • An when has that stopped any US government/entity? We've been in debt... how long? Has anyone been interested in sending people in the Space Shuttle? I think most people are bored with it. The interest can be gained through the usual propaganda by telling everyone how the information gained will help science and could be a pre-emtive measure in case one is headed for us. If they can't get the money with tax they'll sell our kids drugs!
  • It mentions that term a couple times, anyone got a pricetag?

    BTW, seems like a pretty cool thing to me, if they need anybody with razor sharp simulation aiming skills, I volunteer.
  • In your description of Lucifer's Hammer, you didn't mention all the practical info -- like how to make land mines out of shotgun shells.

    Please moderate this post down to -2. Thanks! :)

  • JPL (Score:1)

    by TheZork ( 28335 )
    I saw this in a booth at the last JPL open house - pretty cool stuff. A little telemetry probe, about the size of a large coffee can, sidles up and lands on the comet. It then fires a metal spike down through its center and into the comet's crust, anchoring it. Pretty simple from the way they explained it - just hope it works the first time.
  • Two other great SF books are The Sparrow and The Lost Children (?), its sequel by Maria Doria Russell. It is SF, but mixed with religion, philosophy etc., and with a bit of SETI and AI thrown in. Two of the best books I have read in a long time.
  • Railgun. A railgun can fire a projectile with no recoil because there's no explosive force, only magnetic fields. It would only need enough power for one shot and that could be stored in a high power capacitor.
  • And don't forget Ti and Bo.
  • >what's to say that the minute you harpoon it that the cabling wouldn't snap

    Do you really think NASA would be that stupid to totally ignore the most important part of the mission? Also remember that the satalite will be traving too, so it's not like it's just standing still.
  • incorrect.

    There is always a recoil. Newtons laws are quite specific. The recoil might be less explosive though as you would get a longer, more gradual acceleration.
  • You're right. NASA has the brightest people from the best colleges. They've got custom programs up the wazzo that track comets by the second. By inputing velocity of the harpoon, they should be able to have the computer figure out the exact angle and when to fire the projectile.

    Didn't you ever see Under Siege 2? What about Apollo 13? :) Orbit-tracing and comet tracking programs must be fun. I wanna see the code!

  • I remember reading an article not too long ago, that NASA was planning on send a 6 inch version of pathfinder to a comet to collect data and samples. It would "Hop" around the comet to map it, and also collect some chunks for scientiic study.
    I can see it already...

    NASA Corners The Bottled Water Market With "EtherH2O"!!

    only 25 million dollars a bottle.

  • Big bang in Houston (Score:4)

    by craw ( 6958 ) on Monday July 12, 1999 @06:06PM (#1806718) Homepage
    I have a good friend/old drinking buddy from my grad school days that now works for NASA supervising the making of craters! The last time I visited his lab, he had this real nice rail gun that shot high velocity projectiles at a target. The propellant was gunpowder that was stuffed into condoms! Or as he politely puts it we load gunpowder into a shell or other receptacle He said that getting the condoms (in bulk of course), initially raised some eyebrows in the government purchasing office.

    Here's the web site. [nasa.gov] that describes the lab.

    Ain't science great!

    BTW, the study of impact craters is important to understanding many aspect of planetary science and other topics like why the dinosaurs died. I know that Bruce Willis would agree with me on this.
  • wrong, these 2 latest projects were selected from
    a lot of other projects by nasa. each one has a generous budget to keep it going.
  • Awesome book. A must read.

    Don't forget the cannibals.
  • Well, for starters, the relative motion between launcher and target should be zero so they should literally have hours to target it. Also, as long as the harpoon doesn't go farther than they expect it to, they won't have to worry about cabling breaking. Second, it's a comet so it's a pretty big target.

    Astronauts on a comet, though. Now that's funny. Landing in a hostile environment with no noticable gravity after spending 18 months in space to get there? Well, someone's getting dogged for that idea, but it sure isn't NASA.

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