Space Launch System
Permanent link to this comic: http://xkcd.com/984/
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Person 1: Check out the SLS - 130 tons to orbit. Finally, rockets that improve on the ones we had 40 years ago.
Black Hat Man: Are we getting Nazis to build those ones too?
Person 1, offscreen: What?
Black Hat Man, offscreen: 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
[[von Braun interviewed by a scientist while under guard]]
[[The same scientist in front of a spectacularly exploding rocket]]
Black Hat Man, narrating: Eventually we gave up and had the German teams do it, and they built us the Saturn V moon rocket.
[[The Saturn V gracefully arcing across the night sky]]
Person 1: I'm.. not sure what lesson to take from that.
Black Hat Man: "If you want something done right ,learning from the Nazis isn't enough. You have to actually put them in charge.
Person 1: That's a *terrible* lesson.
Black Hat Man: Then I guess you should get a Nazi to come up with a better one.
{{Title 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).
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