h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/deepimpact/main/?skipIntro=1

Nasa is blowing a whole in a comet.
I sure hope they know what they are doing!
Try are wanting clues to the history of the universe and the make-up of the comet.

This page explains about the project and photos coming soon plus info on possible views from earth on July 4th.

I really enjoyed reading how they are going to blow it up on 4th of July That's what I call HollyWood minds

I sent you an email about this earlier on today.

It doesn't seem like a very good idea to me. For starters, what divine right do "we" as humans have to go merrily blowing up bits of the universe? For all we know, other life forms might actually regard comets as their home!

And, on a more "selfish humanoid" level, the thing "may" contain the starting blocks of what we regard as life; is it really very wise to explode the thing & scatter these elements around?

Maybe in the grand scheme of things astronomical, it is possible this comet might actually be supposed to be floating round intact, possibly it might influence the orbits of other objects in space?

Playing god, if you believe in such an entity, great idea for a 2nd rate sci-fi movie if you don't. Er...how many of the American public were actually aware of this & consulted in advance? Or in fact any of us on this planet? I certainly wasn't!

Quelle surprise, it goes BOOM on July 4th! Independence day with a bang eh! Jolly good fun, what will be next years trick; taking chunks out of the moon to see if it's made of green cheese?

bah humbug!!!

zdt

well i'm not sure , but i no that before we started mucking about in space we had better summers etc . i belive that there are things in life that work just because they do and should not be tamperd with .

Teri where is your sense of adventure!

Alive & well Pheloxi, I haven't exactly led a sheltered life! But i have tried to avoid blowing things up just for the fun of it.

Sorry, but for me it rather smacks of "ooh look, we seem to have inventing a nuclear bomb; let's see what happens if we try it out; ah; there's a nice coral atoll; off we go!"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4642845.stm

zdt

Wake me up when it is over

places a blanket of s over lil me

Thank you Pheloxi

Hi, Terri,

I have to say I agree with you. So, having made a right pig's ear of our own planet, WE, THEY are now going to interfere with something else!

I wonder if they will apologise if it all goes wrong. They are off in to space again soon too, aren't they, if I heard right the other night?

Could we build a space ship big enough to put all our leaders on, preferably on a one way ticket I wonder if they would be so keen then?

I am afraid my spirit of adventure went with Challenger

Websailor

the satelite has sent a tube like probe, to impact on the comet, the dust etc given off will be analised to try to find/learn the composition of the comet, to hopefuly increase knowledge of the begining of the solar system etc, all the aliens in space have got side bets on, to see if it misses

Article on comety stuff here on hootoo:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/A3086101

This is probably a reality TV show for the aliens....

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I know him, he was in my favourite martian

He's been texting his mates down below to get ready for the fun too!

Anyone for underwater volcanoes? Can't believe Dubya organised all this at such short notice, i assume it will blow Japan away at the same moment the comet cops it?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4646185.stm

zdt*wondering when the plague of locusts are due to arrive*

beans!!and deep sea divers

Extraterrestrial sushi!!!!!

So; "they" keep giving us all this nonsense about what they are going to find inside this comet, come on folks, what do you reckon?

I think comet interiors have to contain at the very least:

The other sock
Ballpoint pens
The cigarette you stashed for the 2am screams

Any more ideas?

zdt

sometime this morning a 39ins probe(careful)hit the comet Tempel 1, that was 133 million miles away from earth, traveling at 23,000mph.The comet is half the size of Manhatton Island/New York approx 3.7 miles, it hit with a force of about 4.8 ton of TNT. It has approx 13 mins to analise the crater area and send info back to NASA

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4647673.stm

Just a thought here, but I wonder how much that stunt of blowing up the commet cost???
Probably enough to keep a third world country going for years I would think
What wrong with plain old fireworks these days
Smudger,

Yes, i wondered about the cost too. Just tried to find out, it doesn't seem to be widely advertised on the NASA site, so i googled "Budget for Deep Impact project" & got taken to something called "space.com" but the computer then had an extreme fit, loads of worried sounding whirring stuff, eventually a message appeared "restricted data" & i had to reboot.

Maybe they would rather we didn't know, or maybe my poor old beast just can't cope with all the zeros!



zdt