"Giant Robot! Spare only the readers of Gen X at 40!"

News of things like this always concerns me:

The Japanese Hayabusa spacecraft has approached within 20km (12 miles) of the asteroid it has been travelling to for more than two years. The probe will collect a sample from the surface of asteroid Itokawa and return it to Earth for analysis.

Scientists really seem to have forgotten the lessons of 1960s children's space TV shows, especially Johnny Sokko and His Giant Robot, a mainstay of grade two viewing in 1970 Sydney Mines (where we heated out homes by burning rocks) when we weren't watching Apollo moon landings or Hockey Night in Canada. As I recall there is usually a point, however, in the show when all the white-coated scientists are lined up in front of massive windows pointing upwards shouting things like "How Can This Be?" and "I See Nothing On The Radar!" Then WHAMMO!!!

All I'm saying is that we don't know.