Space Quarantine

14 responses to “Space Quarantine”

1. 

   jurvetson

   Mar 20, 2009 at 12:33 am

   Hang on !!

   
   
   Don’t Panic!

   Reply
2. 

   ▓▒░JASE░▒▓

   Mar 20, 2009 at 12:37 am

   Hi, I’m an admin for a group called Signage & Typography, and we’d love to have this added to the group!

   Reply
3. 

   !MimosaMicheMichelle!

   Mar 20, 2009 at 12:39 am

   It was a kind of little punishment from us envious earthbound non astronauts. "You got to go out in space so wait a while before stepping back on earth!"

   Reply
4. 

   .schtieF

   Mar 20, 2009 at 1:20 am

   greetings from sicily to you steve

   Reply
5. 

   Jaako

   Mar 20, 2009 at 3:38 am

   65 hours!! …hope they had scrabble in there.

   Reply
6. 

   Happy Tinfoil Cat

   Mar 20, 2009 at 4:35 am

   LMAO

   Reply
7. 

   Sprugola

   Mar 20, 2009 at 5:22 am

   So… how’d the trip work out for the little cling-on?

   Reply
8. 

   msamaclean ©

   Mar 20, 2009 at 6:33 am

   LOL…I remember that moon quarantine!
   I wonder if it was the texture they liked? They literally went like a bat out of hell !

   Reply
9. 

   rocketmavericks

   Mar 20, 2009 at 6:36 am

   I believe the poor little bugger likely didn’t make it.

   My memory is a little rough, but I believe the boosters separate at about 200K MSL, but the fuel tank stays attached through the orbital burn, accelerating the little bugger to over Mach 22. Then it jetisons the tank which re-enters the earth’s atmosphere and burns up.

   So either he froze to death, exploded due to his internal pressure, or was incinerated upon rentry. He gave his all for space science. Definitely had the right stuff. We need a memorial.

   My hope is he bailed out on launch, and flew clear of the exhaust plume before the shuttle blew the attachment bolts to the launch platform.

   Reply
10. 

    biotron

    Mar 20, 2009 at 9:47 am

    poor little critter (using a word i never use to help wrestle the perception away from the bat as a "bugger"…) – surely fried after a few seconds 🙁

    Reply
11. 

    Doug_Dirac_Delta

    Mar 20, 2009 at 12:32 pm

    That at the Air&Space Museum annex out near Dulles? Awesome place. That Airstream trailer is right next to the Enterprise.

    Reply
12. 

    jurvetson

    Mar 20, 2009 at 4:01 pm

    Doug – Exactly. More info.

    "Lift off imagery analysis confirmed that he held on until at least the vehicle cleared to tower before we lost sight of him." source

    

    macamaclean: Ah, yes, the Bat Out of Hell became meatloaf…

    And surely the little fella regrets forgetting his towel…

    "A towel … is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. … You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V… Any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with."

    — The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

    Reply
13. 

    NYCArthur

    Mar 20, 2009 at 6:46 pm

    pretty amazing little story here.

    weird combination of Bat Outta Hell and Meatloaf… haha –

    This is one of the most fun pieces I’ve seen on Flickr in a long time.

    That’s me in the suit at Rockefeller Center, NYC
    

    Reply
14. 

    jurvetson

    Nov 4, 2013 at 6:36 pm

    P.S. I posted a bunch of photos of the inside of the trailer, and the USS Hornet recovery ship

    

    As for the fears, I think the NASA planners were raised on War of the Worlds… and Andromeda Strain came out in 1969…

    Reply