Dr. Brian May CBE, 'outraged' by Deep Impact Comet Mission.

[Lord Zentei]

Good grief, what a load of stuff and nonsense this man is saying.

Thanks Noah ... yes, I realize that it is HOPED that the whole comet will not be affected, but I am 99 per cent sure that there is no guarantee of this. Who could be that sure, when no-one even knows the interior morphology of the object. Suppose it were one giant crystalline structure ? What an irreversible mess the projectile would make in this situation.

So?

Sorry, I am not convinced. I think it's a rotten idea, and should be shelved at least until we have exhausted all NON-invasive techniques.

A landing would be far more expensive, and was not an option for this mission.

The very uncertainty of the crater size ("somewhere between a house and a football stadium") indicates to me an indication <snippy> I'm really personally outraged by this. There are those who think that even life on the Earth may have originated from micro-organisms on such a comet ....

A football stadium is hardly the size of a 6km nucleus. And seeing that microorganisms are routinely gene pliced for research, I fail to see the problem here.

<sigh> Why do nutjobs get so much coverage?

[moxy1]

source;

These multicolor image was taken at the Faulkes Telescope North at Haleakala Observatory (Maui, Hawaii) through a B,V,R,iŽ band filters.R-band imaging clearly showed the large asymmetry in coma brightness due to the impact the day before. This image is a July 5th 06:52 UT (after impact) image, divided by an R-band image obtained the day before impact, showing the enhanced brightness in the coma. The image spans 85 x 61 arcsec, North up, East left (as on sky) which corresponds to about 55,000 x 40,000km at the distance of the comet.

Faulkes at Maui Hawaii

[Ian R]

The thing that really upsets me has nothing to do with his "weird" ideas about comets. What really bothers me is that he thought it would be a good idea to actually perform as "Queen"!!! I don't care who is singing...without Freddy Mercury, there is no Queen!!!

You're really missing out! I saw Brian and Roger Taylor perform with Paul Rodgers (formerly of Free and Bad Company) in Cardiff earlier this year. They were absolutely superb! If Roger and Brian want to carry on and call themselves Queen (with both John Deacon's and Freddie's Mum's blessings) then that's fine by me.

As far as Brian is concerned, he comes over as a really good and nice guy - he is certainly no nutjob. However, I definitely feel he is oversensitive about this comet issue and comparing it to a nuclear blast on Venus is just... well... silly! :roll:

[tracer]

I have a difficult time grasping this sort of fervent opposition.

Simple. Brian May is a rock star. Rock stars are required, by law, to be "against" just about everything -- can't be all angsty and edgy any other way.