ScienceCasts: How to Land on a Comet 

It's technically not an exaggeration. Just a clever way to fool people who don't really know too much about space travel.

nuostabu................

Jadvyga Kundeliene thanks

Well, at least it's bigger than Womp Rat.

aserta True that!

I happen to find it a ridiculously well found perspective to enter the subject.

Then follow @ESA_Rosetta(beautiful daily pictures),@philae2014(for the lander itself), #CometLanding or plainly: #67P. These are on Twitter of course.

Hardly bombastic compared to how loud and obnoxious you have to be to get the attention of the masses.

I feel like launching the harpoons will just cause the probe launch upwards like a pogo stick.

Isaiah Phillip thats exactly what it would do ! but I guess they think we are to stupid to know that. These main stream scientist are really starting to disgust me

.. or recall Bruce Willis ...

AV Rescue Nah, he a douche nowadays.

Let's try regardless!

RoronoaZoroSensei See Scott Manley's video on Philae ^^ He tried it!

Usually americans would say something other than knob, but I'm sure most of us would still get this not so funny joke.

NASA has never landed on Venus, that was the Soviet Union. And the landing on Titan was on a joint mission with the European Space Agency. We have pictures but no videos.

We definitely need to go back to Venus and get some good photos. That must be amazing.

Salamihawk it rains acid there and the thickness of the atmosspehere makes it really hard to land. :(

On a note to that where are the pictures of siding spring passing Mars?!

Salamihawk It's...complicated. And right now even tho it would provide a treasure trove of information on our planet past and future (of sorts) it doesn't pay off now, at this moment i mean.

Step 1: Find a comet. Step 2: Fly to that comet. Step 3: Throw yourself onto the surface and apply harpoons to stay there. Step 4: ??? Step 5: Profit.

FonVegen Better yet step 1 find a comet & build cheap fake lander step 2 launch rocket with fake lander into outerspace step 3 fake dramatic landing to distract people step 4 cash out billions of dollars meant for actual comet landing that never happened step 5 much bigger profit shhhhhhhhhhhh

***** I somehow have the weird thought that you really do not like me... I don't know where that comes from.

FonVegen no, I agree with you, I was putting my spin on what you said ! you and I are on the same page here.

I don't think it's so much a problem of probability more like...calculated risk. I think. You have to take in to consideration the wealth of knowledge of both agencies, computer simulations and the fact that this mission is pretty much the equivalent of finding the Americas without a map or prior knowledge of where you should go. IMO.

***** . They have already done this dozens of times before, if you watched the entire 4 minutes of video. The Russians did it on Venus in 1966- Hello! We've had the technology for over a half century. When you have millions (billions?) of dollars to play [and well invested for human endeavors like this- not by Wall Street idiots] and with the worlds top notch scientists to help, you can do so much more than just waste time watching fantasy reality TV or making bad Wall Street Investments. I'll go out on a limb here because I am an astronomy teacher and I'm very excited about this for my students- it may be the most ground breaking mission ever in human history. They may discover something wonderful just beneath the surface. I'll let you guess what. . .

Mark Seibold If this feat is as difficult as it is said, every attempt should be humbly considered as a total new challenge. What Id like to really understand is what exactly means difficult once they have all the simulations and data support for the needed velocity, etc. I only imagine that it is the whole synchronization process and the capacity to adapting to variables. I hope they find water, organic compounds, etc or who knows.

Mark Seibold We've never ever ever fucking landed on a spinning comet before, get your shit straight. Try to actually pay attention to the video where it says why this is different than landing on say mars for example.

Yup looks like bs doesn't it? This is what people think when they don't understand science and math. It just looks magical!

Yip the Russians landed on Venus and took pictures

NicosMind Awesome! Just googled the pictures right now.

NicosMind Wasn't the longest mission duration on Venus measured in seconds?

Joe Seph No the Russian lander stayed function with its coolants for nearly an hour before overheating.

Robert King robert,landed more then once on venus" russia soft landed,took photos each time but didn't have long because the atmosphere supposedly destroyed the craft's systems of communications fast. what's unforgivable is all the expense,time and effort they had camera's set up ONLY to take downward pictures towards the lander legs,no wide angle or outward across the land scape? WHY? should had ,5, or 6 camera's at keast' they are the least expense of the missions

Waste? How is this a waste?

Well screw you too!

NASA is not involved, at all.

monolyth421 Thy Baffled maze of cosmology! Churyumov-Gerasimenko Golf Master #14. "We landed Philae into a cave ". How convenient, first the engines went...the Big Boys can barely afford the truth about cosmos? ...Mimivirus created Thus, Thus made them, and Them shall un-Do Him...hehe was that deep or what :)

Well, why not? It is a terrific thought to imagine the problems or even the standard mission process. And bullets are the most commonly known fast moving objects that are there for comparison. So I think in this case it is not really wrong to use those examples. To make one thing clear: I am not American and I dislike their gun ownership laws. A lot. As well as their attitude to terrorism. But we shouldn't overdramatise it in this case.

FonVegen There is almost no gravity nor a engine. Where does the terror come from. The metal spring ?

Roger Keulen Well, thinking about the costs for the mission, and the embarassment that will definitely follow should the mission fail (And, of course, lead to further financial cuts and losses), everyone involved in the mission and/or simply interested in the outcome will probably be rather nervous until touchdown.

But what has that to do with terror and the speed of a bullet. It's a just American bullshit. Atleast try to explain how it's done, but that isn't intresting. Terror and bullet's are intresting apparently not science. The maximum speed wil be 3 feet a second. And it will have a ballistic trajectory, that's science talk for: _We don't have engines !_

Roger Keulen First of all, I know what a ballistic trajectory is. Next: What else can you compare the speed of a comet to? This is meant for public information, and not everyone here can imagine the speeds, distances and obstacles that wait in outer space. And "terror" is not only defined by "terrorism", but can also describe a state of intense fear and nervousness. Which will be present during the descent, no matter whether it can be controlled. I, as stated some comments ago, dislike the American policies just as much as you seem to, but I don't think there is a better (or easier) way of describing this mission to the average person, who admittedly, is not incredibly intelligent (and I am including myself here, since I know that there are almost infinitely many things that I do not know or understand, and lots of things I do and think are not correct and mere assumptions...).