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Spider Missing After Trip To Space Station
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Thu Nov 20, 2008 10:56 AM
from the lost-in-space dept.
from the lost-in-space dept.
Garabito writes "A spider that had been sent to the International Space Station for a school science program was lost. Two arachnids were sent in order to know if spiders can survive and make webs in space, but now only one spider can be seen in the container. NASA isn't sure where the other spider could have gone. I, for one, welcome our new arachnid overlords."
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Where oh where? (Score:5, Funny)
A search of the other spider's digestive tract might yield results.
Re:Where oh where? (Score:5, Informative)
If this was the result of spider cannibalism, it'd be easier to just find the dessicated spider husk left in the container. They probably checked for that.
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Re:Where oh where? (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_webs_in_space [wikipedia.org]
and it was an experiment conducted in the '73!!!
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Re:Where oh where? (Score:5, Funny)
Spiders on drugs is just as interesting. (Video) [youtube.com] (Pictures) [trinity.edu]
Think about that before your next Jolt Cola.
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Re:Where oh where? (Score:5, Funny)
The only reason that THC is illegal and caffeine is legal is because Big Caffeine is so powerful. Fuckin' JFK killed in Dallas, same place Starbucks started. Makes you think, don't it?
Don't bogart that thing, man. Pass it over here.
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Re:Where oh where? (Score:5, Funny)
Well I don't know I
Heard it started
Out
Of a
Small town just outside Dallas
However I might be wrong.
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Re:Where oh where? (Score:5, Funny)
Because for every spider we send to space, that's one less left here on earth trying to eat us.
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Re:Where oh where? (Score:5, Funny)
Shuttle Flight: $500 million
Spider habitat: $9
Losing half of test subjects: Priceless
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Not necessarily (Score:5, Interesting)
All spiders can only ingest liquid food, and in fact have two filters to prevent solids from getting in.
From there it gets funnier:
- most spiders simply inject the prey with enzymes that liquefy its innards, then suck the resulting liquid lunch. In this case they'd still find the empty chitin shell of the spider.
- some actually "chew" the food while flooding it with enzymes to dissolve it, but I'm guessing even in this case they'd still find legs and whatnot from the dead spider.
I guess the big question at this point is exactly what species of spider were these two.
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Re:Not necessarily (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Not necessarily (Score:5, Funny)
I guess the big question at this point is exactly what species of spider were these two.
Especially, if it happened to be a non-cannibalistic species.
That would suggest that outer space turns spiders into cannibals.
Why haven't we seen this effect on humans yet?
Maybe it takes a while for those wacky cosmic-cannibal-rays to accumulate, and humans have just not been up in outer space long enough?
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Re:Not necessarily (Score:5, Funny)
Why haven't we seen this effect on humans yet?
I was going to make a joke about how we had, and the Columbia disaster was actually a deliberate destruction so the public wouldn't realize NASA's cannibalism problem when only half the crew came back. But then I thought "Naw, too soon." But then I thought "Aw, what the hell."
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Re:Not necessarily (Score:5, Funny)
They quoted a NASA official as saying that just because we can't see it doesn't mean it isn't in the box, we haven't opened the box to verify it.
Schrödinger's spider?
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Re:Not necessarily (Score:5, Funny)
Dammmit, you beat me to it. And with my nick, I should have got to it first. Or maybe not. It's uncertain.
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Re:Not necessarily (Score:5, Funny)
Those are traditionally referred to as 'nightmares'.
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Re:Where oh where? (Score:5, Funny)
That's why Heidi let the bag go yesterday. I know my wife runs out of the room screaming when she sees a spider.
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Re:Where oh where? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Where oh where? (Score:5, Funny)
STATUS CHECK 11/20/08 00:00 UTC: EARTH PRESENT
STATUS CHECK 11/21/08 00:00 UTC: EARTH MISSING, PLEASE VERIFY
STATUS CHECK 11/22/08 00:00 UTC: EARTH PRESENT
STATUS CHECK 11/22/08 16:05 UTC: ION CANNON COORDINATES RECIEVED. FIRING
STATUS CHECK 11/23/08 00:00 UTC: EARTH PRESENT
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Re:Where oh where? (Score:5, Insightful)
Arachnophobia is the most common phobia, certainly in the western world. It's certainly not innate. Babies show no fear of spider at all. We pick arachnophobia up from our parents and from those around us, and it's easy to see why. When people around you, and almost everyone you see in contemporary media displays arachnophobia, it's hard not to be arachnophobic. Hollywood's use of spiders, and spider like creatures, as stock horror objects is actually a self perpetuating.
I would compare this to the slightly less common, and more substantiated, fear of wasps and bees. People will become very, very nervous around wasps and bees, jumping up from their seats, running away, or trying to kill the creature. But the reality is that these creatures will rarely sting unless you disturb them or their nest(at least in europe). Nevertheless fear of wasps is much more acceptable than fear of spiders, but only slightly more justifiable, and it's just as irrational.
Some people are so arachnophobic that they will actually kill any spiders they see. It's a very ugly thing to see someone quite viciously slam down a shoe or newspaper on a spider as it tries to scurry to safety. There is no reason to it. At least people who stand on chairs aren't taking it out on the spider. Apparently a cure for a phobia is gentle exposure. A friend of mine went to a spider museum in Prague and apparently lost all apprehension around spider entirely. I'm not sure [allpraha.cz] I'd recommend this for your wife though.
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Re:Where oh where? (Score:5, Informative)
No way. I grew up in Pennsylvania with a swimming pool in my backyard. You wouldn't believe how much insects a pool in that area attracts. Many, many times if a few friends were over to swim, and the wasps felt threatened of their water source (for their nests in our attic) then they would get very aggressive. They would even just randomly sting people lounging out on the deck. Bumble bee's are one thing, but wasps just don't even want you nearby (even if you were there first). Also, you preyed everytime you mowed the lawn that you wouldn't disturb an underground nest...
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Re:Where oh where? (Score:5, Insightful)
Arachnophobia may not be innate (I think you could argue either way on this--my daughter cried when she saw a spider crawling along the rail of her crib--and as far as I know, that's the first time she ever saw one), but it's a reasonable response.
Spiders are venomous. For an average person, identification of spiders at any distance isn't easy, so the "danger! move away" response is the safe one. And eliminating spiders in a child's bedroom, for instance, is pretty much a no-brainer.
Here in California, one of the common spiders is the Black Widow. When I was a child, my father wound up in the hospital after being "bitten" by a Black Widow. Which again means that the "danger! move away" response makes sense.
With bees and wasps, you've got people who know either first or second hand about the pain of a sting, so again, I don't think a moderate amount of fear is unreasonable, no matter that the danger of being stung is pretty low. For people like myself (where anaphylactic shock is a possibility) moving away from the vicinity of bees is not only reasonable, but wise.
All that to say that I don't think some degree of concern about spiders, bees, and wasps is completely unreasonable--which is what a phobia implies.
By the way, I used to scoop up spiders and carry them outside when I found them indoors. But since I've been married, I usually have to vacuum them up. Sheesh--lose track of one spider on the way to the front door and you'll never live it down :-)
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Re:Where oh where? (Score:5, Funny)
Found it! [finlosreviews.com]
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Let me be the first to say (Score:5, Funny)
Damn you summary for stealing our memes!
Isn't there extra radiation in space? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Isn't there extra radiation in space? (Score:5, Funny)
Spider one can spin elastic! Two can hide from sight! Spiderone got the crap end of the deal, so it murdered the other one in the night! Here come to the two! The fantastic two!
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Missing spider (Score:5, Funny)
Lost.
That's what the other spider claims, anyway. In other news, that spider just submitted a replacement for ReiserFS.
Re:Missing spider (Score:5, Funny)
too soon
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spiders on a spaceship! (Score:5, Funny)
First Post From Space (Score:5, Funny)
That is why.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That is why.... (Score:5, Funny)
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Origin Story? (Score:5, Funny)
Boy Bitten by Radioactive Spider Dies of Leukemia [ryanbaker.org] (Sorry, couldn't source the original)...
makes (Score:5, Funny)
The arachnid was sent in order to know if spiders can survive and makes webs in space...
makes? I makes teh webs and yous gives mes teh bugs. Otherwise, I eats other spiders.
Re:makes (Score:5, Funny)
I'm in ur ear, layin mah eggz.....
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Missing? (Score:5, Funny)
If right now, I were an astronaut wearing a spacesuit, I guess I'd be feeling kind of itchy all over...
Enough is Enough! (Score:5, Funny)
I have had it with these motherf***ing spiders on this motherf***ing space station!
(Sorry, couldn't resist...)
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Sounds to me like Sabotage (Score:5, Funny)
Step 2: "Lose" spider in space
Step 3: ????
Step 4: Space domination
Yo.... (Score:5, Funny)
...check the lid.
How Spiders Eat (Score:5, Informative)
To everyone (including myself) whose first thought was that the one spider ate the other, I'd suggest we consider how spiders eat.
Spiders don't swallow prey whole. If it'd been two or three octopuses, fish, snakes, frogs or any other sort of animal, this would make sense. But I'd be willing to bet one spider eating the other wouldn't have gone unnoticed for at least a couple of reasons. First, spiders don't eat quickly. One spider eating something the same size would be sucking the juices out of the other for quite a long time (hours). Second, the spiders are messy in the sense that they tend to leave dried out carcasses laying around after they're done.
So... that's probably not what happened.
not missing (Score:5, Funny)
Link to original, more detailed, story. (Score:5, Informative)
From the original article: "Kirk Shireman, deputy shuttle program manager, says that while only one spider is visible, that doesn't mean the other is missing. 'We don't believe he has escaped the payload. I am sure we will find him spinning a web somewhere in the next few days."
Why?... (Score:5, Funny)
Why would you do that? Why would you put a classic reply in your summary of the article and rob some poster of a 5 Funny rating? You're just mean.
Dupe from 1973 (Score:5, Interesting)
Did they check... (Score:5, Funny)
Did they check the tool bag? Oh, wait...
A few centuries from now... (Score:5, Funny)
...an alien probe named S'pdr will encounter the USS Enterprise.
moola (Score:5, Funny)
A spider that had been sent to the International Space Station for a school science program
And they say we don't spend enough on education.
Actually, no missing spider at all. (Score:5, Informative)
Another case of news media sensationalizing what really happened. There are two spiders in the habitat (spider habaitat, not ISS human habitat). The goal is to see how two spiders will interact in micro-gravity.
For about the first 24 hours after launch only one spider was seen. After that BioServe Space Technologies at CU Boulder (the group responsible for the habitat) located the other spider. It had simply been outside of the view of the camera.
Spiders in space... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Spiders are not cannibals (Score:5, Informative)
Black widow spiders typically prey on a variety of insects, but occasionally they do feed upon woodlice, diplopods, chilopods and other arachnids.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_widow_spider [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Re:It's simple! (Score:5, Funny)
Nah, its off filming the sequel to Snakes on a Plane... Spiders on the Shuttle
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