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Flying frog discovered during NASA rocket launch

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38 points by hiccup 12 years ago · 26 comments

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jk4930 12 years ago

Pretty much related text: "NASA’S SUCCESSFUL QUANTIFYING OF COMEDY TIMING"

http://symftr.tumblr.com/post/5987695109/nasas-successful-qu...

chiph 12 years ago

OK, game idea for someone: Space Frogger. Mr Toad tries to dodge orbital debris & marauding aliens on his way to Venus.

  • tribe 12 years ago

    I wrote this exact game as a high school project, but instead of Venus, I think you had to get to a Stargate / wormhole

asciimo 12 years ago

Why the heck are we launching rockets on top of a wildlife refuge? https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!q=nasa&data=!1m4!1m3!1d...

  • JonnieCache 12 years ago

    I remember reading that launch sites are often nature reserves because they're launch sites. An exclusion zone enforced by armed guards does wonders for biodiversity.

    The artillery training ranges I grew up near to were similarly lush.

    • jonnathanson 12 years ago

      True, oddly enough. As is, famously, the demilitarized zone in Korea.

      • scrumper 12 years ago

        And indeed are the verges of motorways (highways) in the UK, where stopping is prohibited unless in an emergency and a strip of land leading up to the hard shoulder is fenced off. They are excellent hunting grounds for hawks and other raptors.

      • georgemcbay 12 years ago

        On a related note, the expansive Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base north of San Diego is probably the only thing stopping there being one giant urban sprawl all the way from San Diego through Orange County into LA.

  • duskwuff 12 years ago

    Read the description of the photo on Instagram; they go into that.

    • mistercow 12 years ago

      That sounds extremely iffy to me. The "disturbance" may be short lived, and the space they take up may be a small portion of the island, but I find it hard to believe that the degree of disturbance caused by a rocket launch can be canceled out by its brevity.

      • ghc 12 years ago

        Why not? The latest statistics I could find say that about 22 launches per year happen there. At each launch pad there are probably only a fraction of those. But even if the disturbance is approximately 2 minutes long (a slowly rising rocket), that's less than 1 hour per year. I find it hard to believe that wildlife cannot cope with that.

        • mistercow 12 years ago

          My understanding is that the noise from a rocket launch is so loud, even 10 miles away, that you have to shout over it to be heard. One mile from the launchpad, it's loud enough to damage your ears.

          Wallops Island is 6 square miles.

          • snowwrestler 12 years ago

            Your understanding is not accurate; I was 5 miles away from this launch and the low rumble was not loud enough to drown normal talking.

            Most launches from Wallops are sounding rockets, which are much smaller than the Minotaur. Which is itself much smaller than the Space Shuttle was.

      • diminoten 12 years ago

        It can be put into other terms: The refuge gets a lot of money because of the NASA station there.

      • snowwrestler 12 years ago

        If it wasn't a launch area it would probably not be a wildlife refuge, especially since there is already an existing refuge, Assateague Island, right next door.

        It would most likely be packed with vacation homes, just like the rest of the Mid-Atlantic shoreline.

        Disclaimer: I saw this launch from Assateague and it was awesome. I was too far away to see any flying frogs, but the mosquitos and bats did not seem too upset where I was.

joezydeco 12 years ago

Was the flying performed on the frog's part, or was it assisted by the 360,000 pounds of thrust coming out of the rocket?

mead5432 12 years ago

Best line in the caption: "...the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has an agreement with NASA to use the NASA-owned portion of Wallops Island for research and management of declining wildlife in special need of protection."

Hope that frog wasn't one in special need.

Patrick_Devine 12 years ago

Hopefully NASA works to make certain the launch area is clear of small critters in the future. It's really not good PR to be blasting frogs (or anything) with a few hundred thousand pounds of rocket exhaust.

Achshar 12 years ago

How does this go with the space bat?

jlebrech 12 years ago

what if one of it's ancestors once thought, i would like to fly like one of those things. a few generations of evolution later you have a flying frog. sadly that's not how evolution works.

ArekDymalski 12 years ago

Looks like someone misunderstood the cooking directions for the bullfrog.

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