March 28, 2024

XKCD Web Comic #984: Space Launch System (described)

A web comic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

 

 

 

Panel One: Drawing of two stick figures. The figure on the left is holding out cell phone with a picture on its screen to show to the other stick figure, who wears a black hat.

Person One: Check out the SLS–130 tons to orbit. Finally, rockets that improve on the ones we had 40 years ago.

Black Hat Guy: Are we getting Nazis to build these ones, too?

Panel Two: Caption above two subpanels.

Offscreen: What?

Caption above next two panels: When we first captured Von Braun and his team, we had our engineers interview them, then we built the rockets. But our rockets kept exploding.

Subpanel One: Drawing of three stick figures. One is seated (possibly tied up) in a chair. One stands behind the chair, wearing a helmet and holding a rifle. One stands in front of the chair, taking notes on a clipboard.

Subpanel Two: Clipboard guy watches as a rocket explodes.

Panel Three: Drawing of a Saturn V rocket with afterburn on a black background.

Caption: Eventually we gave up and had the German teams do it, and they built us the Saturn V Moon Rocket.

Panel Four: The same two stick figures from the first panel are standing and talking. The first one has lowered his arms and is looking downward.

Person One: I’m…not sure what lesson to take from that.

Black Hat Guy: “If you want something done right, learning from the Nazis isn’t enough. You have to actually put them in charge.”

Person One: That’s a terrible lesson.

Black Hat Guy: Then I guess you should get a Nazi to come up with a better one.

Hover text: The SLS head engineer plans to invite Shania Twain to stand under the completed prototype, then tell her,”I don’t expect you to date me just because I’m a rocket scientist, but you’ve gotta admit–this is pretty fucking impressive.”

 

Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).

Comic by xkcd.com. Described by BlindGadget under the Creative Commons license.

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