Posted on 06/28/2005 5:32:44 PM PDT by ElkGroveDan
This might be a good time for a scientist to say "The interesting thing is that if we alter the angle somewhat, we can get it to eject a rock of about any size we want to hit anywhere on earth."
"Anywhere, doctor?" a reporter might ask.
"Oh, yeah, anywhere. Mecca, Palestine, Pyongyang, you name it. Science is fascinating, and I think people everywhere on earth should pay attention."
Won't this unprovoked attack subject us to years of terrorist retaliation from Tempelian insurgents?
Too late -- the Martians will not tolerate our assault on their holy comet, and will attack in force...
(At least the movie trailer said so)
Oh for Pete's sake. It's a big snowball, a rock, a bunch of frozen dirt. Do you think the same isn't true when we cut a large diamond? Or blast a mine, or divert a river, build a dam or bulldoze a hillside. It's all stuff, just rocks and dirt and minerals. Just exactly WHO is being hurt by this?
That's the kind of mentality held by liberal enviro whackos. God put that stuff here for us to use and study and benefit from. Scientists are going to learn a lot about our solar system and how it was formed by this. It is VERY worthwhile, and it hurts NO ONE.
We have permission. In fact we are supposed to do a lot more than this.
But there are still questions left. Like what is under the surface. Hopefully the Impactor probe will shed some light on this.
Heh...good one, but I've a feeling you might regret not explicitly putting in a sarcasm tag. There are enough Freepers who take things seriously enough to miss even the most obvious of jokes.
The sky is falling, the sky is falling /panic mode
Oh everything will be just fine, I'm sure, but it IS a little unsettling to consider the fact that these people who are working so damn hard to reassure us mere mortals that there is absolutely NO risk whatsoever, are the SAME people who most likely were 100 percent confident, and had no doubt that the space shuttle Columbia was going to land at Kennedy Space Flight Center without a hitch, "as usual".
"The (atomic) bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives."
- Admiral William Leahy, 1945
"No matter what happens, the U.S. Navy is not going to be caught napping."
- U.S. Navy Secretary Frank Knox, December 4, 1941
Actually the two are a bit different. Since the beginning of the Shuttle program engineers and scientists have cautioned just how dangerous it is and all the thousands of things that must go exactly right for a shuttle to launch and return safely.
This comet thing is really simple physics. You have a copper mass the size of your washing machine slamming in to a mountain of ice and rock the size of Manhattan. The masses are known, the velocities are known and the physics is simple.
The only surprises might be the size of the crater left and the amount of dust and ice thrown off in the collision. It all depends on the actual composition of the comet. The eventual path of this giant mass is not in question though. even in the unlikely even that it were to be shattered (the way a gnat might shatter a locomotive), even if that were to happen the total combined energy of the resulting mass is such that it will continue it's present orbital path, nowhere near the Earth or its orbit.
Who thought it would? Da DUberals. LoL!
I'd worry about their suicide bombers, but they're already all dead.
Gosh they're good.
Good point.
Noted.
No, I don't watch TV or other MM sources. I have seen many so called expert scientific theorists proven wrong however.
"Good point. Noted."
Pythagoras would be a Luddite, if I'm understanding your particular cosmology correctly.
Wow, you're quick!
Pulse of America, my finger. Finger, pulse of America.
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