On September 26, 2022, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) succeeded in impacting a probe on the asteroid Dimorphos in an attempt to redirect the path of that body.
You’re late to the party, NASA. It’s been done already. Over a century ago.
As chronicled in The Cometeers, an international team already attempted to redirect an Earthbound comet.
In 1897.
When Comet Göker threatened to strike our planet in September of that year, there were no rockets, no nuclear weapons. They fired projectiles from the Jules Verne cannon and tried to deflect the comet with a gunpowder explosion. Commander Hanno Knighthead struggled to motivate his argumentative, multinational crew of eccentric geniuses to work together.
Then he learned the crew included a saboteur. Only a truly extraordinary leader could get this group to cooperate, identify and thwart the spy, and jury-rig a way to divert the comet. Lucky thing Hanno brought his chewing gum.
Good work, NASA. DART struck its target. But let’s not call it new or innovative. The credit for saving the Earth from collision goes to The Cometeers, by—
Poseidon’s Scribe
