Get this: On July 4, NASA's Deep Impact shuttle (no joke) is going to try to blow up a comet. Here's the WSJ article. And here's the AP story, which contains two highly dubious claims:
1.) "The Deep Impact spacecraft shares the same name as a 1998 Hollywood disaster movie about a comet headed straight for Earth. NASA says that the names for the space mission and blockbuster movie were arrived at independently around the same time and by pure coincidence."
2.) "Scientists say Deep Impact has real science value that will hopefully answer basic questions about the solar system's birth."
Come on. I know NASA's been dying to see if they can blow stuff up in space. At least, y'know, since Star Wars (the movie, not the missile program), and especially since '98, when they made two movies about astronauts and scientists saving life as we know it. And the July 4th thing? That's pure gravy. Let's just hope that we don't wind up seeing a movie about this in the future, and when watching the preview, hear a low, whispery voice from mission control say: "Something went wrong."
Not to be nitpicky, especially over a post that is so delightfully tounge-in-cheek, but there is smoething of a difference between wanting to blow something up ("we're earthlings, we should blow up earth things"), and trying to put a hole in something to see what's inside.
ReplyDeleteBlowing the comet up would just be gravy. :-)