{{comic
| number = 984
| date = November 30, 2011
| title = Space Launch System
| image = space_launch_system.png
| titletext = 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.'
}}

==Explanation==
SLS, which stands for {{w|Space Launch System}} is the new launch program being designed by {{w|NASA}} to replace the retired {{w|Space Shuttle}} launch system. In the first frame, [[Cueball]] is showing [[Black Hat]] something about the SLS, possibly a video on his phone or other portable electronic device.

As usual with his appearances, Black Hat is causing trouble. Here Black Hat would appear to be telling the truth because {{w|Nazi}} scientists like {{w|Wernher von Braun}}, who was one of the developers of the {{w|Saturn V}} launch vehicle, came over to America (from {{w|Germany}}) and helped develop NASA's space program.

Black Hat's assumption in the last frame is obviously a bridge too far (which is where the joke is in the comic), but he gets his desired reaction out of Cueball, who is hanging his head. First he makes it clear that the lesson is that you should put the Nazis in charge (and we saw from world war two what that could lead to.) Then when Cueball thinks this is a terrible lesson, he puts salt in to his wound, by suggesting that the only way find a better lesson, it to ask a Nazi for a better one - a consistent move if you apply his lesson, but a logic bomb because he suggests to put a Nazi in charge of finding another lesson than "put a nazi in charge".

{{w|Shania Twain}} comes into this comic in the title text because in her song "{{w|That Don't Impress Me Much}}", she sings: "Okay, so you're a rocket scientist / That don't impress me much". But, the title text argues that if she stood under the new SLS prototype, she would admit it was in fact, impressive. And it is thus the SLS head engineers plan to invite Shania to do just that. Although he could still understand if she did not wish to date him, but he would be surprised if she was still unimpressed.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball, is holding something up to show it to Black Hat. It is small and rectangular with a black line in the middle (possible a rocket).]
:Cueball: Check out the SLS — 130 tons to orbit. Finally, rockets that improve on the ones we had 40 years ago.
:Black Hat: Are we getting Nazis to build those ones, too?

:[Text is written between two frames, with two smaller frames below. A line comes up to Cueballs first comment, showing that it is still the two from the first frame talking, but off-panel.]
:Cueball (off-panel): What?
:Black Hat (off-panel): When we first captured von Braun and his team, we had our engineers interview them, then ''we'' built the rockets.
:Black Hat (off-panel): But our rockets kept exploding.
:[First small panel below the above text: A soldier with helmet and a machine gun is guarding von Braun who is tied to a chair, while being interviewed by an almost bald scientist (hair along the back of his head), who takes notes on a piece of paper.]
:[Second small panel below the above text: The same scientist standing with the paper, watches as a launching rocket explodes. The landscape behind shows a hill.]

:[A black frame with white text above the white Saturn V rocket flying through space.]
:Black Hat (off-panel): Eventually we gave up and had the German teams do it, and they built us the Saturn V Moon rocket.

:[Cueball is looking down, his hand with the thing he showed to Black Hat in the first panel hanging down. Black Hat looks at Cueball.]
:Cueball: I'm… not sure what lesson to take from that.
:Black Hat: "If you want something done right, learning from the Nazis isn't enough. You have to actually put them in charge."
:Cueball: That's a ''terrible'' lesson.
:Black Hat: Then I guess you should get a Nazi to come up with a better one.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Space]]

1716: Time Travel Thesis

2016-08-05T12:49:20Z

Barraki: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1716
| date = August 5, 2016
| title = Time Travel Thesis
| image = time_travel_thesis.png
| titletext = 'Hey, what are those futuristic goggles for, anyway?' 'Oh, this is just a broken Google Glass. It was 2010's night at the club.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Several interpretations possible. Please try to sort them out.}}
[[Cueball]] has apparently been reading about {{w|time travel}}. He tells [[Megan]] about this, and Megan excitedly remarks that she did her college thesis on time travel which basically means that she is supposed to know a lot more about time travel than a guy who has just ben "reading" about it.

Cueball, however, continues to ask her if she knows basic facts about time travel, like he is investigating if he has discovered facets about it that she would have overlooked while writing a thesis about it. Megan keeps trying to say that since she wrote a (Time Travel) Thesis she already knows all of this and much, much more. Even if the issue is not sexism itself, this may count as an example of {{w|mansplaining|mansplain}} (man assuming he knows more and pretending to teach a woman a subject she knows far better).

At this point Megan's future-self arrives with a ''Bzzzzt'', having used time travel to arrive at this exact moment in time. It seem she has continued her research and has successfully managed to make a time machine (maybe in a collaboration with others, but with the ability to use it to her own end and needs.)

The reason she arrives is only to tell her younger self that this conversation with Cueball doesn't go anywhere and isn't important, and so present Megan can leave and not waste her time anymore. Up till then, Megan was presumably reluctant to break off a conversation on the topic of time travel, since the conversation could potentially have improved, or maybe she was even at first attracted to Cueball and interested because he at least had read about time travel. But once the conversation began to run of track, it came as a relief to know that she could quit without the risk of missing out on anything important.

And then she just walks away with her future-self leaving Cueball hanging in the last panel. That was a new way to get dished.

Alternatively, future-Megan just makes an excuse to haul present-Megan off in order to prevent the latter from disclosing some details of time travel science to Cueball, which could have unintended consequences. However using very advanced technology, or even violating physics law, for ''very mundane'' ends is a very common in xkcd, so using time travel to prevent useless conversation is not surprising from Megan.

In either case if future Megan did not finish the conversation she would not know it was unimportant, thus indicating that she actually did. So by coming back she now changes her own (and Cueball's) future. But maybe she knows this will not change anything, just save her self from wasting time. Of course the general implications of being able to travel like this are enormous, and the {{w|Grandfather paradox|paradoxes arising}} from such a possibility endless. For instance the future Megan could now describe to the present Megan how the make the time machine. But why not have gone even further back making it possible to travel in time even earlier etc. (And of course the whole going back and killing one of parents before they even meet, like the idea in {{w|The Terminator}} movie). Generally time travel is a [[:Category:Time travel|recurring theme]] in xkcd.

Could be that [[Randall]] may have had some conversations like this, where after having spend a lot of time getting nothing out of it himself, would have wished his future self had come back to tell him to just leave the conversation now.

In the title text present-Megan asks future-Megan about her futuristic googles and what they are for, presumably assuming they are needed for the time travel (maybe it is the backpack?) However it turns out it's just some old and broken {{w|Google Glass}}. The only reason future Megan wears these is that she attended a party at the club that had a 2010's night theme.

This is an indication of how far from the future she has traveled. There were no Google Glasses available to the public in 2010. But during the 2010's they will probably be in common use, the first being released in 2013, and open to general public in 2014. In the future where Megan comes from, they are already old. Also a 90s party may be thrown today, but no a 2000's party. So it is safe to assume that Megan is at least from the 2030's. Also people attending retro dress-up parties frequently make mistakes and do not dress up exactly in-style, creating some anachronisms, especially if they dress up like they did many years ago.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is facing Megan, talking to her.]
:Cueball: I've been reading about time travel.
:Megan: Cool! I did my thesis on time travel!

:[Cueball is now gesturing toward Megan. An electrical charge of some sort is shown occurring outside the panel in the bottom right corner behind Megan.]
:Cueball: Nice! So you know about closed timelike curves?
:Megan: Yup. Thesis.
:Cueball: Apparently wormholes can use exotic matter to–
:Megan: I know. Like I said–
:Charge: <big>''Bzzzt!''</big>

:[Megan has turned away from Cueball to the right. Megan from the future, wearing sunglasses, a headset and a machine strapped to her back has entered the frame from the right where the charge appeared.]
:Future-Megan: You can skip this conversation. It doesn't turn out to be important.
:Megan: Oh, thank God.

:[Cueball is standing alone, the two Megans have left the panel.]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Time travel]]