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."
119V-0080 (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:119V-0080 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:119V-0080 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:119V-0080 (Score:4, Funny)
Can't wait to hear about Life of Brian. Before and after launch.
Re:119V-0080 (Score:5, Funny)
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Kevin?
(Could be a clash of cultures thing though)
OT: Your sig (Score:5, Funny)
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?!
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If the creator did use Emacs it would come with a decent text editor.
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Re:OT: Your sig (Score:5, Funny)
Could God create an editor that sucks so badly even He couldn't use it?
(joke purposefully phrased to be editor-agnostic)
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Eric the half-a-bat.
Has Disney optioned his life story yet? (Score:4, Funny)
I smell a Disney Adventure movie. I hope they're in talked to his agent.
Re:119V-0080 (Score:5, Funny)
"No, man, I haven't seen him since last night when he hooked up with that really huuuge white chick. why?"
"Dude, you should have seen it. He was goin' at it with her right out in the open, and all of a sudden she started shaking and smoking. I heard him scream 'YYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWW!', there was a huge flash, she flew away, and that was that last I ever heard from him."
Re:119V-0080 (Score:4, Funny)
He's not an astro-bat! He's a very naughty boy!
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I would have gone with "dead"
If it was a girl bat (Score:5, Funny)
I would have named her "Misty".
Re:119V-0080 (Score:5, Funny)
We all know that if they had put it to a vote it would have been named "Colbert".
Re:119V-0080 (Score:4, Informative)
I would have gone with Wall-E.
And he's probably chasing a female bat named Eve who got into the Shuttle...
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" Hey hav u seen Brian around? "
" Naw, last I saw him he was taking off like a bat outta Hell... "
Re:119V-0080 (Score:5, Funny)
Name for the bat (Re:119V-0080) (Score:2, Funny)
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?!
Re:Name for the bat (Re:119V-0080) (Score:4, Interesting)
Good grief. We provide Spoiler Protection for children's shows? - "Hey did you see the latest Hannah Montana? Lili and Jackson..." "No!" "What?" "Don't you know it's rude to spoil a story?" "Oh sorry." ..... "Then you probably don't want to hear about iCarly's kiss with Sam last night?" "Grrr."
Back to the bat:
Probably the same thing happened to him that happened to the butterfly clinging to my car this morning. At around 60 the wind tore him off the windshield and he went "splat" on the car behind me. That bat did not go to space.
Re:Name for the bat (Re:119V-0080) (Score:5, Interesting)
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!
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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:Name for the bat (Re:119V-0080) (Score:4, Informative)
The scale of "very close" in air at sea level is MUCH smaller than you think it is. Stick your hand out your window going 65 and see if you can feel a spot where the wind isn't moving close to the window.
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Last time I checked, small flying animals with feathers were called birds.
Bats are mammals and have fur.
Never have I ever encountered a more opportune moment to cry "Whoosh"...
Re:Name for the bat (Re:119V-0080) (Score:5, Informative)
Boundary layer (at least at subsonic speeds) where laminar flow slows is barely a tenth of an inch thick. Brian would have been a fair bit thicker than that, so would have certainly been exposed to significant aerodynamic forces as the Shuttle accelerated.
Mynock (Score:5, Funny)
Are they sure it's not a mynock [wikia.com]?
Re:119V-0080 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:119V-0080 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:119V-0080 (Score:5, Funny)
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i can haz spaceflight?
Yes, u can haz. [icanhascheezburger.com]
Re:119V-0080 (Score:4, Funny)
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http://www.pvponline.com/2008/06/30/interlude-the-adventures-of-lolbat/ [pvponline.com] was only the first appearance of the LOLBat.
Here's his second appearance:
http://www.pvponline.com/2008/08/25/interlude-the-lolbat-returns/ [pvponline.com]
http://www.pvponline.com/2008/08/26/dark-forces-gather/ [pvponline.com]
http://www.pvponline.com/2008/08/27/the-lolbat-strikes/ [pvponline.com]
http://www.pvponline.com/2008/08/28/epix-battle/ [pvponline.com]
http://www.pvponline.com/2008/08/29/epic-win/ [pvponline.com]
And, of course, his secret origin:
http://www.pvponline.com/2009/03/11/secret-origin-of-the-lolbat/ [pvponline.com]
O
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Re:119V-0080 (Score:5, Funny)
>There are cars that accelerate faster than that. Of course, I suppose they don't weigh 4.5 million pounds.....
And they're not accelerating upwards (I hope)
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They also aren't accelerating at that rate *constantly* for over 8 minutes... most of them peter out after maybe 15 seconds.
Re:119V-0080 (Score:5, Funny)
And they're not accelerating upwards (I hope)
some of those crazy cars go at 9.8ft/s^2 (+ or - a little for air resistance) as for weighing 4.6 million tons, there is a car (vehicle) that goes .5 mph and weighs a lot.
Its the thing that carries the shuttle to the launch pad.....
Re:119V-0080 (Score:5, Informative)
And they're not accelerating upwards (I hope)
some of those crazy cars go at 9.8ft/s^2 (+ or - a little for air resistance)
I think you mean 9.8ms^-2 ;-).
Metric: get it right, first time.
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/ Should have checked one more time apparently
Re:119V-0080 (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder how long he held on? Unless he was sheltered from the airflow I find it hard to believe that he could have held on once the shuttle reached any real speed. It's hard enough to hang on in a wind tunnel at subsonic speeds
Probably frozen in place. They try not to have ice on the tank because it keeps breaking off and smashing tiles... that was the end of Columbia. Still some builds up.
http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/44545 [umich.edu]
Is a technical article "A millimeter wave technique for measuring ice thickness on the Space Shuttle's external tank" from 1991 where they basically built a radio telescope to measure the temperature of the ice/insulation etc. They don't directly discuss ice thickness, but all their calibration curves ran from 0 to 15 mm thickness. So unless they totally screwed up, they don't expect more than 15 mm of ice.
Most bats are somewhat thicker than 15 mm (err, are they? thats about half an inch). That is probably enough to freeze it onto the tank though.
Since the ice likes to shake loose and crash into the shuttle as it falls, likely the bat didn't make it to space. I don't think the ice would sublimate fast enough in space that if it made it, it would "stage separate" from the tank. So, if it made it up there, it rode the tank back down.
Personally, I'd worry alot more about bats nesting in the engine turbopumps than "chilling out" on the cryogenic fuel tank.
Re:119V-0080 (Score:5, Informative)
did we run out of targets ? (Score:5, Funny)
>When those photos were blown up
poor photo.
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>>>>>Made me smile.
>>Me too...
When two anonymous cowards talk to one another in the middle of the slashdot forest, does anybody hear them?
Hollywood Movie Incoming! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hollywood Movie Incoming! (Score:5, Funny)
I've had it with these motherfuckin' bats on this motherfuckin' shuttle!
Spacebat? nah.. (Score:5, Funny)
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Spacebatman, now that would be news!
He's Batman. [shortpacked.com]
Supermanbat (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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Re:It's just Wayne Enterprises doing some research (Score:4, Funny)
I can hear it now... (Score:5, Funny)
Where are the animal rights crowd? PETA should have a field-day with this.
Re:I can hear it now... (Score:5, Funny)
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: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...
That was no bat... (Score:2)
The Air Force Research Lab is developing an Electric Motor-powered Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) that can 'harvest' energy when needed by attaching itself to a power line. It can also temporarily change its shape to look more like innocuous piece of trash hanging from the cable.
I guess I assumed that they meant the US Air Force.
I'm batman (Score:4, Funny)
Your answer: Val Kilmer sucks. Your wager: George Clooney sucks.
Bats are _not_ rodents, dangit! (Score:2)
Where did that myth come from anyway?
Re:Bats are _not_ rodents, dangit! (Score:4, Funny)
And koalas aren't bears, cavys aren't pigs, cynomys aren't dogs, and that KFC you had last night wasn't chicken...
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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. Curious
It's a conspiracy (Score:2, Funny)
If you're looking for the truth about animals in space, look here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvjgIxuVdo4 [youtube.com] [moon bears, the whitest kids you know]
reminds me of those buzzards (Score:2)
Somehow I doubt it (Score:4, Interesting)
Lucky fucker.
Not quite (Score:5, Funny)
Heroic fucker.
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Lucky fucker
Combustion, suffocation, and perhaps severe hypothermia as well. I don't think I would call that luck; or at least not the kind of luck I would ever care to have myself.
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Hey, some people would go through even more than that to make international headlines.
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Re:Somehow I doubt it (Score:4, Funny)
Playing too much Nethack [wikia.com], are we?
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yeah, somewhere in the first 30 seconds, don't they have to power down a little as they break the sound barrier? There's no way it could have lasted even up to that point.
That is the ultimate bull ride though.
External Tank (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:External Tank (Score:4, Informative)
The external tank doesn't make it into space.
Yes it does. It doesn't make it into orbit, however.
Re:External Tank (Score:5, Informative)
Its final message to Earth (Score:5, Funny)
it's now a dead bat (Score:3, Informative)
bats can't survive in space.
bats can't survive in the upper atmosphere.
bats aren't falcons.
Re:it's now a dead bat (Score:5, Funny)
Bats cannot swallow a whole hotdog
Bats cannot follow the finer details of Neon Genesis Evangelion
Bats aren't horses, sheep or baseball bats
Re:it's now a dead bat (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:it's now a dead bat (Score:5, Funny)
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!!
mad as a hatter (Score:5, Funny)
Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you're at!
Up above the world you fly,
Like a teatray in the sky.
Re:mad as a hatter (Score:5, Funny)
Little bat, clinging.
I can has space travel please?
HOLY SHIT, blast off!
The difference in Quality. (Score:5, Funny)
"...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.
Re:The difference in Quality. (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks to Mitch Hedberg (1968-2005)
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So you're saying Bigfoot also has a reality distortion field? I think we have found a good replacement for Jobs.
But why can't the heat tiles stay on? (Score:2, Funny)
NASA should investigate adhering heat tiles with bat claws
Damn! (Score:2)
Is it April 1st already?
Evolution (Score:2)
Finally! (Score:2)
Our only purpose on earth (Score:2)
Check out CNN's brilliant reporting on this event (Score:5, Funny)
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Fear and Loathing in Space (Score:4, Funny)
We can't stop here! This is bat country!
Bats leaving (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Seriously (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Seriously (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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an orbital velocity of 17,500 milers per hour
17500 milers per hour = 28163.52 kilometes per hour
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yes but can your car do it straight up? 0-100mph in 10 seconds isn't impressive. 0-100 straight up(not down every car can do that)is what is impressive.