Kurt Klunder
USAF

I can just imagine the animation for that…:-)

the theory though…sheesh no wonder American children are so illiterate in science. Not only do we have the creationists (cretinists) bleating about how we’re all going to hell for “believing” in evolution, we also have crackpot scientists trying to cram their ridiculous theories down our throats

Brian, music IS your forte (forgive the pun). Science, it seems, is not.

Deep Impact has returned more detailed images of a comet nucleus than any pictures I’ve seen before. Plus, the impact offered the surety (or, at least, a very good chance) of examining material from the interior of a comet in a sufficiently large and dense plume that good spectrographic data were obtainable for the first time. It also provided information about the mechanical structure of the comet nucleus. So there.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/japan-muses-c-04a.html

Wow, I knew the Hayabusa was fast but I didn’t know it was THAT fast!

http://www.suzukicycles.com/Products/GSX1300RZK5/Default.aspx

I kid because this is such amazing work and I burn with envy.

Sincere congratulations to all involved.

Since when? Where is the evidence of that? No, the President (Bush, or any other President) does not have to personally sign approval for all NASA missions. That’s what the NASA Administrator is for. That’s why there is an agency. Congress has to sign approval to the budget, which the President proposes but they are free to change. In broad strokes, the President has approval over NASA’s programs, but the details are in the hands of the agency.

> The team certainly pulled off an amazingly accurate piece of targeting – but it’s striking how similar the problem they solved is to that of hitting an enemy satellite in times of a war.

Only in the broadest strokes. Take a projectile, aim it at a moving target, and make contact. But if you look at the actual details, the two are as different as the difference with trying to shoot a duck in flight (with a slug, just for kicks, instead of birdshot). Taking six years to travel past other planets to get lined up in the correct orbit for a collision with a comet (or asteroid) is a much different undertaking than trying to lauch a counter missile on cue to track and catch an ICBM in less than 30 minutes.

> One is tempted to wonder if the analysis of the shower of debris from the blast will truly (as is claimed in the press release) “solve the problem of how the Solar System was formed” …

Only if you think in the most simplistic terms do you think this will “solve” the problem. What it will do is provide data about what comets are made of, which will contribute to knowledge of how they are formed. Because we believe comets were formed from the early material of the solar system, looking at the comets will tell us about that early material, and contribute data on the early solar system, which will help us understand how it formed. It is a long chain of evaluating data and combining it with other information, not merely getting an answer out of the blue.

>… or if it will become more and more apparent that this was really pretty much all about an “IMPACT” on the 4th of July, and THAT was why the 300 million dollars became available….

Gee, if that’s all it was, why are the Japanese hard on the trail of exactly the same type of mission, a cometary impact with Hyutake set for this September, which includes a sample return? Are the Japanese just looking at how to blow up ICBMs and getting a large impact on the Fourth of July? And did President Bush get personal approval over the Japanese mission?

>I notice there is now a little back-tracking going on in the description of what happened …. they are now saying the comet “ran into” the copper projectile ! I had to laugh …

And tell me, what is so funny about that? I assume he’s arguing that the impactor was the item under control and not the comet. However, the description is accurate. It’s like a pedestrian stepping into the street right in front of a moving bus. The bus runs into the pedestrian. Nevermind that the bus was committed to the path and couldn’t change direction or stop, and that the pedestrian was the one getting in the way, it’s still the bus that runs into the pedestrian. It’s called the English language. Deal with it. The impactor was placed into a path that moved in front of the comet, and the impactor was moving away from the comet but at a slower speed than the comet was moving. Ergo, the comet ran into the impactor from behind.

For someone who claims “my background is almost entirely science, even more than music”, he does a poor job of proving it.

On a side note, Deep Impact was on the front page (!!!) of my local newspaper on the 5th. Awesome!

jbs

“Hoagland suggested that early data from the Deep Impact mission is tilting towards Van Flandern’s theory of exploded planets. Rather than “dirty snowballs,” comets are made of the same materials as asteroids, which form during the explosion of planets, said Van Flandern, who believes that all planets of a certain mass eventually explode, just as stars do.”

Doesn’t this sound like a Monty Python skit? Maybe if we just plunged the planet into a huge bucket of water – would that keep it from exploding?

http://www.brianmay.com/brian/brianssb/brianssbjul05a.html#11

Care to respond BA?

What really bugs me about this nonscense is that most of the astrology sites are of course supportive of this garbage, but specifically are hoping to get a lot of media attention from it.

Other than completely ignoring this tripe (which I am not always in agreement with) is there anything you could or should do to help bury these morons Phil?

Heh. They don’t seem to be taking it so well, though.

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2005/07/04.html#m

“Physicist James McCanney joined the show next . . . there is no visible ice, water or snow on the comet nucleus, he said, suggesting that the “dirty snowball” model is wrong, as he has previously argued.”

Maybe NASA should also pay a few million dollars in damages to the Russian “astrologist”. )

!!!!!!!!!YEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Remember, for me the impact was on July 3 (and for Mountain time, too).”

Yea, true enough. impact was just before midnight for me. Then we stayed up and watched the press conference…the movie they showed was really neat.

It was still really good timing.

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/07/04/deep.impact.sues.reut/

It was really cool watching the feed come in last night…One of my best friends is a production engineer and this project consumed about the 3 years of his life. It was cool to get the skinny and be that close to the mission. His big contribution were the springs that detached the impactor, once that went fine, it was smooth sailing and all fun for him. what an amazing thing…