A success at NASA

After hitting a couple rough patches, finally there is something for our friendly neighborhood space agency to be proud of. What is perhaps most comical about the situation is that the success of the mission was dependent upon the destruction of a multi-million dollar spacecraft.

NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft lived up to its name early Monday when it slammed into a comet with such force that the resulting blast of icy debris stunned scientists with its size and brightness.

With the flyby stage of the two-part spacecraft watching from a safe distance, an 820-pound, copper-core "impactor" craft smashed into the nucleus of comet Tempel 1 at 23,000 miles per hour, sending a huge, bright spray of debris into space.

"The impact was spectacular," said Dr. Michael A'Hearn of the University of Maryland, the projects principal scientist. "It was much brighter than I expected."

Boys will be boys.

Actually, in all seriousness, the impact served a purpose: another craft is set to do a fly-by and collect debris from the comet for study. All and all, a pretty damn expensive science project.