War of the Worlds Publicity Stunt?

NASA will make some celestial fireworks this weekend when the 4-mile-wide comet Tempel 1 will slam into the 820-pound, washing machine-size Deep Impact projectile at 10:52 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time on July 3. Though scientists don't know exactly what will happen, they hope the collision will kick up enough dust to give them a first-ever look at the material inside a comet.

The impact will be photographed up close by cameras mounted on the spacecraft that released the projectile and on the projectile itself. In addition, the event will be monitored from afar by more than 60 observatories in 20 countries and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of amateur astronomers. Wired has a list of sites that will have pictures here

Has it occurred to no one else but me that this whole "crash-a-ship-into-a-comet" thing was designed to alter the course of this comet instead of the stated purpose of data collection? I mean, all this thing did was take pictures, right? Couldn’t the Hubble telescope accomplish the same thing? And what’s with the "bright flash of light" when the thing hit the comet? Why would a spacecraft that was designed for a suicide mission explode? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to attempt a softer landing and deposit a bunch od data gathering gear on the comet. This smacks of something we’re not being told…
Just a thought.
By the way- great site, BL.

imagine they knocked it on course and destroyed the planet?

that would suck.