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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."
Poor bat. Can we come up with a better name for him (or her) than 119V-0080? We're talking about the highest- and fastest-flying bat of all time, probably. A real name is definitely in order.
>When those photos were blown up
poor photo.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Bats on a Shuttle?
Spacebatman, now that would be news!
Where are the animal rights crowd? PETA should have a field-day with this.
Submission as evidence constitutes plaintiff and/or prosecutorial misconduct.
Your answer: Val Kilmer sucks. Your wager: George Clooney sucks.
Poor bat. Can we come up with a better name for him (or her) than 119V-0080? We're talking about the highest- and fastest-flying bat of all time, probably. A real name is definitely in order.
Bruce Wayne?!
Could be worse. Could be raining.
Contrary to popular opinion, we never got a bat into space. It is a conspiracy by the government to one-up batman. You're all a bunch of sheeple.
If you're looking for the truth about animals in space, look here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvjgIxuVdo4 [moon bears, the whitest kids you know]
I don't how strong a bat is, but I doubt he was able to hang on that long. My guess is his claws gave out, he slid and clawed is way down the tank, and went out in a huge blaze of glory with the whole world watching and wondering.
Lucky fucker.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
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.
30 feet off the pad the engines gave out and the bat carried them into orbit.
Heroic fucker.
Are they sure it's not a mynock?
"So long and thanks for all the bugs."
It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
bats can't survive in space.
bats can't survive in the upper atmosphere.
bats aren't falcons.
They're using their grammar skills there.
And koalas aren't bears, cavys aren't pigs, cynomys aren't dogs, and that KFC you had last night wasn't chicken...
Blank until
Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you're at!
Up above the world you fly,
Like a teatray in the sky.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
"...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.
And that folks, is the difference between NASA-cam and your average gas-station-cam, which, on average, can't identify Bigfoot if it were robbing the place.
NASA should investigate adhering heat tiles with bat claws
Yes, he has one of those devices which filters oxygen out of a vacuum on his utility belt.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
The bat was on the far side of the external tank from the orbiter, about a third of the way up from the bottom. There wasn't really any way that it could strike the orbiter during launch, or that any foam that it might pull off would fall and strike the orbiter. The weight of the bat compared to the weight of the shuttle loaded with fuel is negligible, you'd need a pretty big envelope for your back-of-the-envelope calculations to have enough decimal places to show any effect from it. It was not an unsafe call to essentially ignore the bat. It didn't pose any risk.
As for the idea of contaminating something like Mars and having it end up overrun with earth bacteria, I guess it's impossible to prove that it couldn't happen, but I don't it's very likely. Mars is more like the earth than anywhere else in the solar system, but it's still very different. You might be able to find a few organisms here that could potentially survive on Mars, but it's doubtful that any would thrive, particularly to the point of overrunning the planet.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
other things bats are not or cannot do...
Bats cannot swallow a whole hotdog
Bats cannot follow the finer details of Neon Genesis Evangelion
Bats aren't horses, sheep or baseball bats
they say it is often more relevant then the comment above, all we know is its called the Sig!
How do you know that guidance system on the shuttle wasn't sabotaged in an obscure plot for world domination that was narrowly averted by this bat flying in at the last minute and guiding the shuttle into orbit only to return quickly to the offices of the Daily Bat and resume his secret identity has Gerald the Bat, mild mannered reporter.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
This bat is no more! He has ceased to be! He's expired and gone to meet his maker! He's a stiff! Bereft of life, he rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed him to the perch he'd be pushing up the daisies! His metabolic processes are now history! He's off the twig! He's kicked the bucket, he's shuffled off his mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleeding choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-BAT!!
Bats aren't horses, sheep or baseball bats
In the face of all the potential examples of what bats are not, your failure to pick 3 things is mind-boggling.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
Casket of Soil Mistakenly Sent to ISS in lieu of Supplies soon followed by... ISS Infested by Vampires
At the end of their report on the bat they speculate whether the bat was still clinging to the shuttle when it docked witht the ISS. How they think it managed to jump from the external tank to the shuttle during lift-off is beyond me.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
NASA finds, among a pile of junk mail, a gift-wrapped bowl inscribed with the words "So Long and Thanks for All the Gnats."
That's it people, the Earth is fraked. The Vogon demolition fleet must be on its way.
I smell a Disney Adventure movie. I hope they're in talked to his agent.
The solid rocket boosters separate 125 seconds into the flight at about 150,000 feet (46 km). About seven minutes later when the external tank (ET) separates 30 seconds after MECO, it's at about 120 km, so it's already in space (going with 100 km as the boundary, which is greater than your 50 miles). Additionally, although it's on a suborbital trajectory, it is not yet at the apogee of that trajectory.
I do not have a number for its apogee, but since the OMS-1 burn is generally not required anymore, you can assume to a first approximation that the ET's apogee is close to that of the Shuttle. Without it's own version of the Shuttle's OMS-2 burn to circularize the ET's orbit, however, the ET reenters the atmosphere after less than a complete orbit.
Regardless, if the ill-fated bat with the apparently broken wing (or its earthly, perhaps spacely, remains) managed to stay attached through max Q, it could have been the first animal (body) to make it up to space.
than no i don't think it made it to space.
Unless they took the tank to space somehow...
Or does the tank actually make it to what is considered 'space'by entering so sort of xxxxsphere
I would have named her "Misty".
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Uhm, it's a CNN reporter, they don't actually think, never have and probably never will.
What's interesting is bats aren't even close to rodents, taxonomically speaking.
Humans and other primates are, along with rodents, rabbits and treeshrews in the superorder "Euarchontoglires", below the infraclass "Eutheria" of "Mammalia".
Bats are in the infraclass "Laurasiatheria" under "Eutheria", along with hedgehogs, various ground shrews and moles, bears, dogs, cats, horses, weasels, skunks and so on. Most marine mammals are in the same infraclass as bats: otters, seals, walruses, whales etc. Curiously, although the various moles and shrews resemble bats superficially, they are not the closest living relatives of bats. Bats are more closely related to carnivores like dogs and cats, or even ungulates like rhinos, tapirs and horses.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
We can't stop here! This is bat country!
Mars is more like the earth than anywhere else in the solar system
Not to nit-pick, but I would argue that the upper atmosphere of Venus is more Earth-like than the surface of Mars. At a certain altitude, Venus has a similar pressure and temperature to Earth, with the majority of the atmosphere being made up of CO2. Supposedly, a human could survive there with only a respirator and something to protect against acid rain, the same can hardly be said for Mars.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed :wq!
Wow, you're treading on thin ice here. I mean there are some things that should never be made fun of. Do you realize how many people could take offense at this "joke"? People could be screaming "blasphemy" and worse! I'm personally not offended, but I think a lot of people wouldn't be so tolerant. I think you are running the risk of creating hatred and even violence with this kind of mockery.
I mean, implying that the Creator of the Universe doesn't use Emacs? That's harsh... where's your sense of decorum and respect for other people's religions?!
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
If the creator did use Emacs it would come with a decent text editor.
Bye and thanks for all the insects?
The Long Now Foundation
Ostensibly, yes. Emacs and Lisp. In reality, God http://xkcd.com/224/
Could God create an editor that sucks so badly even He couldn't use it?
(joke purposefully phrased to be editor-agnostic)
Oh, Fry, I love how you can *REMEMBER TWO THINGS*
To answer your question, No.
Microsoft beat god to it in 2007..
Slashdot - I went there to fix their grammar that they're so bad at.
Anyone have any idea what it was like for the bat before it likely lost its hold and fell into the flaming rockets? If it got near or above the speed of sound, what would the bat be thinking? Do they just perceive a wall or does the bat see nothing at all? Just wondering what was going through its mind.