NASA Probe to Blast into Comet

[charmler]

The page.

If they can blast a comet why can't they blast a few local near Earth asteroids?

[strangerstill]

I guess the problem is one of momentum. Asteroids are big, big things. Try to move a mountain by crashing a train into it - you might make a hole, but the mountain ain't going anywhere...

That's why they want more money to detect them early - 'cos of Chaos theory, if you 'nudge' it say a year before the danger is due, you need far less of an impact to get it out the way.

[jadison]

Intriguing, although a bit costly!
I hope we'll have some sort of defense mechanism intact b4 a possible comet/meteor plunges into our planet. The latest statistic states that we have only mapped out roughly 2% of the night sky...leaving a large margin for possible Near-Earth collisions.

Although I do believe something like this would be very costly...

-=jd=-

[Toadman]

hmm..hope the impact doesn't alter the comet's orbit, albeit miniscule.

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

hit the comet on July 4, 2005.

That's some expencive fireworks thier setting off that year.