Did Bat Hitch a Ride To Space On Discovery? 422
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."
I can't believe it wasn't posted yet... (Score:0, Insightful)
Oblig:
I for one, welcome our new Space-Bat overlords.
Re:I can hear it now... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't even joke about it. The second the die hard environmentalists hear about this, NASA will have to hire a team to check for bats.
Re:119V-0080 (Score:3, Insightful)
They also aren't accelerating at that rate *constantly* for over 8 minutes... most of them peter out after maybe 15 seconds.
if the bat is on the tank... (Score:2, Insightful)
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
Re:Name for the bat (Re:119V-0080) (Score:3, Insightful)
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!
Until he got about halfway to orbit and then suffocated due to lack of oxygen, anyway....
Re:Check out CNN's brilliant reporting on this eve (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:119V-0080 (Score:1, Insightful)
Awesome! I'm gonna make it a little bit better.
Are you?
Re:I can hear it now... (Score:4, Insightful)
I dont see why they would, the bat chose to go to space. who are environmentalists to decide what a bat should do with his life?? damn interlopers...
Re:I can hear it now... (Score:2, Insightful)
Animal rights activists and environmentalists are two different things. For one, an environmentalist would be far more concerned with the pollution from the rocket than they would worry about a single injured bat being killed.