05 July 2005

"You're Outta Orbit! You're Outta Orbit! The Whole Trial's Outta Orbit!"


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...