Skip to Content  Thar she blows!  Nasa goes all Ahab and plans
to harpoon a comet  Man has always hunted. Even before
prehistory ditched the ‘pre’ part of its name and became just
history, man has used harpoons to make the hunt easier –
especially when there was water involved.  Before history even
considered dropping its prefix, hunters used long sharp pointy
things to spear fish. But sometimes the fish slipped off the
end. Then some bright spark had the idea of putting a barbed end
on the sharp pointy thing and the harpoon was born.  For
centuries, the harpoon was the weapon of choice for hunting at
sea but, lately, it has fallen out of vogue.  Nasa are planning
to rehabilitate the harpoon but, instead of hunting whales at
sea, they will be hunting comets in space.  A brief(ish) history
of rockets  I have a new article over at Sen (Space Exploration
Network). It recounts the first 2,000 years (or so) of
humanity's journey to the stars.  You might think you know the
story, but there was a long and fascinatin