Into space. Then a hero.
Pad 39A, March 15, 2009. A free-tailed bat on Discovery’s orange tank, holding on as the shuttle climbed. John and Dan thought that was an amazing origin: a small animal rides into space and, in the comic, comes back a superhero. Years later they started a podcast from their phone calls and named it after SpaceBat. The podcast and the comic are separate. The comic — the one where he makes it — is still being drawn. Stay tuned.
The launch was real. The hero is the fun part.
The record
What launched. What clung. What the cameras actually showed.
15 Mar 2009 · 19:43 EDT
Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center
Space Shuttle Discovery stands on the pad for STS-119, a night launch to the International Space Station. The sky is already on fire. On the orange foam of the external tank, something small is moving.
Wildlife
Not a fruit bat
First reports called it a fruit bat. NASA later confirmed a free-tailed bat. A wildlife specialist, reading the video, said the animal likely had a broken left wing and trouble in the right shoulder or wrist. It could not fly off.
ICE-01
They signed a waiver
The final inspection team — ICE — logged the animal as Interim Problem Report 119V-0080. Systems engineering ran a debris analysis. A Launch Commit Criteria waiver to ICE-01 was written to accept the stowaway. NASA hoped it would wake and leave. It did not.
Infrared
Alive. Seventy degrees.
The foam never dropped below 60°F. Infrared showed the bat at about 70°F through countdown — warm, not frozen to the tank as many assumed. It changed direction from time to time. It never let go.
Liftoff
Past the tower
Discovery lifted at 7:43 p.m. EDT. Launch imagery confirmed the bat held on until the vehicle at least cleared the tower. After that, the cameras lost him. NASA’s line: the animal likely perished quickly during the climb to orbit.
NASA’s line: the animal likely perished quickly during the climb to orbit.
Not the podcast
NASA’s cameras lose him after the tower. The comic starts there: the climb, the powers, the cape. The podcast is the phone calls.
The ride
Past the tower
He could not fly off. A wildlife specialist, watching the video, thought the left wing was broken. So he held the orange foam through countdown — warm on the infrared, about seventy degrees — and rode Discovery at least as far as the tower. After that the cameras lost him. That is already an origin.
The hero
SpaceBat
John and Dan’s version is the fun one. He does not fall off. The climb does something to him. He comes back with powers, a winged cape, and a name. SpaceBat. A new superhero whose first page is a real launch.
The podcast
The phone calls
The show is not that story. John and Dan already talked like this — comics, movies, tech, politics, markets — on the phone. They started a podcast from those calls and named it after him.
The comic
Stay tuned
The origin lives in the comic, and the comic is its own book. They are making it online. Stay tuned.
“Goodbye and godspeed, magnificent Spacebat.”
A bat goes to space and comes back a hero. That is the comic. John and Dan’s podcast is the phone calls — comics, movies, tech, politics, and markets — named after him.