Last Friday, NASA launched a spacecraft off the surface of the Earth and on its way to the moon. It also launched, as the photo below showed, a frog off the surface of the Earth and on its way … well, in the direction of the moon.
NASA
Why would a frog be hanging around a launchpad? The launchpad at the Wallops/Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport has a “pool” for the high-volume water deluge system that activates during launches to protect the pad from damage and for noise suppression, and likely there was a (formerly) damp, cool place that was a nice spot for a frog to hang out.
Until, that is, the water became part of a fiery hell. We’re pretty sure the frog didn’t make it. NASA says:
The photo team confirms the frog is real and was captured in a single frame by one of the remote cameras used to photograph the launch. The condition of the frog, however, is uncertain.
But consider that, as the Christian Science Monitor points out, the frog was in a “2552 degrees Fahrenheit (roughly) steam cloud.” So while the science-minded folks at NASA may consider the frog’s fate uncertain, as far as we’re concerned, the only uncertainty here is about the nature of the afterlife and whether the frog is currently in heaven or being reincarnated as a future astronaut.
