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Japan launches rocket carrying asteroid probe

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“From out there on the Moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’”

Edgar Mitchel, Apollo 14 astronaut, speaking in People magazine on 8 April 1974.

Go Hayabusa2, Go!

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Everyone seems to forget about Hayabusa 1. It was the first craft to land on an asteroid not the European as everyone seems to be claiming

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayabusa

3 ( +5 / -2 )

I'm curious - what are these " fundamental questions about life and the universe" expected to be answered from this mission?

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

It requires relatively little energy to boost a spacecraft from earth to the orbit of the asteroid's orbit and then match the spacecraft's velocity to that of 1999JU3.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

That's awesome, I hope they find some lifeform living out there in the vacuum

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Gogogo, I appreciate your comment. None of the Americans I know had ever heard of Hayabusa despite being the first in many areas, especially first sample retrieval from a non-terrestrial object other than the moon! There are no less than 3 feature length films on hayabusa 1 - they are all good, but my favorite is called simply HAYABUSA and stars Takeuchi Yuko. The achievement is phenomenal for all humans, but this movie also partially tells the development of space exploration in Japan. Must see. Congratulations Hayabusa 2 team!!!!

4 ( +4 / -0 )

"It will blast a crater in the asteroid to collect materials unexposed to millennia of wind and radiation, in the hope of answering some fundamental questions about life and the universe."

Here's my fundamental question: Where did everything in the universe come from, and how long has it been here?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

gogogo... The ESA robot landed on a comet, not an asteroid. Not the same thing.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Godspeed.

Congratulations on a successful launch JAXA!

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Let's hope it doesn't change the trajectory of the asteroid to one where it would collide with the earth. That sure wouldn't look good on a resume.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

@yuudair

See NASA site for what THEY found: http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html. JAXA is hoping to take that research further with newer technology.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I think I may have the answer to my fundamental question.

Everything in the universe has always existed in one form or another. Well, hopefully Hayabusa2 will confirm that!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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