It's John Grisham meets Irwin Allen! The mission that sent the Deep Impact space probe smashing into the comet Tempel 1 kicked up more than cosmic debris--it also brought a lawsuit from a Russian astrologer. The newspaper Izvestia reported today that 45-year old clairvoyant Marina Bai is suing the U.S. space agency, claiming their successful mission "ruins the natural balance of forces in the universe " (NASA scientists hoped the mission would help in the understanding of how the solar system was formed--whoopsie!). Bai is seeking damages totalling 8.7B rubles (about $311M U.S.--the cost of the mission) for her "moral sufferings" and "deformed horoscope". She explained: "somewhere deep inside a voice told me the whole mission had to be stopped. I fear that it could have an impact on all humanity." NASA representatives in Russia could not be reached for comment--big surprise--but U.S. scientists have assured that the crash did not significantly alter the comet's orbit around the sun and poses no danger to Earth. Unconvinced, a Moscow court has postponed hearings on the case until late July...affording little time to train a team of gruff-but-loveable Black Sea oil workers to fly into space to undo the damage...
