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Did Bat Hitch a Ride To Space On Discovery?
suraj.sun writes "A bat was seen clinging to the external fuel tank of the Space Shuttle Discovery before its launch on Sunday, apparently clung for dear life to the side of the tank as the spaceship lifted off.
The shuttle accelerates to an orbital velocity of 17,500 milers per hour, which is 25 times faster than the speed of sound, in just over eight minutes. That's zero to 100 mph in 10 seconds.
Did it make it into space? No one knows yet. But photos of Discovery as it cleared the launch tower showed a tiny speck on the side of the tank. When those photos were blown up, it became apparent that the speck was a bat."
The external tank doesn't make it into space. It separates from the shuttle before that. Unless the bat managed to switch horses in the middle of the stream.
Fluid dynamics basically says that at very close distances to a surface, it doesn't matter how fast the fluid is flowing, the wind speed at the surface is very low, and approaches zero. So maybe he made it!