Editing 1402: Harpoons

The latter peak on this graph refers to the {{w|Rosetta (spacecraft)|Rosetta}} unmanned spacecraft. As part of its mission, it carried a lander called {{w|Philae (spacecraft)|Philae}}, which has two harpoon tethers to anchor itself to the comet {{w|67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko}}. Rosetta was launched in March 2004 (as shown in the graph) and was scheduled to encounter the comet in August 2014, making this a timely comic. Rosetta maneuvered to enter orbit on September 10, and ultimately the Philae lander touched down on the comet on 12 November 2014, although the harpoon system failed to deploy. Randall produced a live comic of the landing, updating [[1446: Landing]] every 5 minutes with the latest progress. The Rosetta spacecraft also carries a disk micro-etched with 13,000 pages of text in 1200 languages donated by the Long Now foundation, mentioned in previous comics.

The latter peak on this graph refers to the {{w|Rosetta (spacecraft)|Rosetta}} unmanned spacecraft. As part of its mission, it carried a lander called {{w|Philae (spacecraft)|Philae}}, which has two harpoon tethers to anchor itself to the comet {{w|67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko}}. Rosetta was launched in March 2004 (as shown in the graph) and was scheduled to encounter the comet in August 2014, making this a timely comic. Rosetta maneuvered to enter orbit on September 10, and ultimately the Philae lander touched down on the comet on 12 November 2014, although the harpoon system failed to deploy. Randall produced a live comic of the landing, updating [[1446: Landing]] every 5 minutes with the latest progress. The Rosetta spacecraft also carries a disk micro-etched with 13,000 pages of text in 1200 languages donated by the Long Now foundation, mentioned in previous comics.

The title text compares the Philae lander's method of deploying its tethers to {{w|whaling}}, in which sailors would throw harpoons at a whale with the intent of killing the whale. It was important to throw hard so the harpoon would stick in the whale so it could not get away and would tow the whaling boat until it got tired and could be killed. Thus the title text implies that the spacecraft is sentient and needs a motivation to fire the harpoons hard enough to stay anchored to the comet; to this end it has been programmed to believe that its mission is to kill the comet. Evidently this motivation was not enough, as Philae ultimately failed to deploy its harpoons - it still managed to land, though.

The title text compares the Philae lander's method of deploying its tethers to {{w|whaling}}, in which sailors would throw harpoons at a whale with the intent of killing the whale. It was important to throw hard so the harpoon would stick in the whale so it could not get away and would tow the whaling boat until it got tired and could be killed. Thus the title text implies that the spacecraft is sentient and needs a motivation to fire the harpoons hard enough to stay anchored to the comet; to this end it has been programmed to believe that its mission is to kill the comet. Evidently this motivation was not enough, as Philae ultimately failed to deploy its harpoons - it still managed to land, though.