[Righty_McRight]

Just to cut some people off at the pass...yes, $333 million can hire a lot of border patrol agents. No, NASA didn't buy the probe from China via Wal-Mart.

I can't wait to hear about the results of the mission.

[Echo Talon]

$333 million can hire a lot of border patrol agents.

So could the $2,000,000,000.00 that we send to Israel every year...

[Justa]

But if the debris shows a high content of hydrocarbons, as other comet samplings have hinted, then the deep biosphere theory of oil may be true.</p>

[KDD]

I wonder how they know if they have a clear field of fire.

Do they know what might be beyond the target

If they miss?

[Allegra]

Fireworks?

I see fireworks almost every night. Hear 'em, too. They must have a lot of holidays to celebrate around here or something.

[varon]

Comets - frozen balls of dirty ice, rocks and dust - are leftover building blocks of the solar system after a cloud of gas and dust condensed to form the sun and planets 4 1/2 billion years ago.

Hmmmm, let's see here. Is it the early hour, lack of coffee or what that muddles my mind with a very puzzling question.

They say they want to learn more of the comet's primordial cores. If the comets are leftover stuff of which the solar system and planets are made of, would it not stand to reason that whatever is in the core of the comet should also be found in the planets like earth, for instance???
What am I missing here>

[Gideon7]

[handy]

NASA hopes to shoot off its own celestial sparks in an audacious mission that will blast a stadium-sized hole in a comet half the size of Manhattan. It would give astronomers their first peek at the inside of one of these heavenly bodies.

The Death Star is about to go operational and this is the best cover story they could come up with?

If all goes as planned, the Deep Impact spacecraft will release a wine barrel-sized probe giant bullet on a suicide journey, hurtling toward the comet Tempel 1 - about 80 million miles away from Earth at the time of impact.

What is the calibre on that baby?