the fourth (4th) of the july--independence day--deep impact--can't wait

nasa's deep impact project's impactor spacecraft is s'posed to strike it's target--a comet.

the flyby (the other robotic spacecraft involved in the mission) will erect some sort of 'shield' system. that could be accomplished with any number of methods (some cheesier and/or more or less effective), but they've got my interest piqued.

and then our old pal flyby is going to observe the results as his aptly named co-robot impactor smashes into the sunny side of this comet.

assuming everything works, it'll give nasa some good data about collsions with natural bodies in microgravity, data on the composition of these bodies (or at least one of them), not to mention a live test of automatic guidance and targeting systems.

i dunno about you, but my fingers are crossed.

we're gonna 0\?\?|\| 7H15 <0|\/|37!

--cid