Editing 2559: December 25th Launch

{{comic
| number    = 2559
| date      = December 24, 2021
| title     = December 25th Launch
| image     = december_25th_launch.png
| titletext = Update: Santa has been destroyed by the range safety officer.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a RANGE SAFETY OFFICER - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The James Webb Space Telescope is a space telescope jointly developed by NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency. It has suffered many, many delays over its development period (as previously referenced in [[2014: JWST Delays]]), but it is finally scheduled to launch on December 25, 2021.

In this comic, the James Webb Space Telescope is finally ready to take off. However, unfortunate circumstance occurs: Santa Claus himself, on his way to deliver presents to children, crosses into the path of the telescope. The joke is the implication that, right on the brink of success, this extraordinarily unlucky incident would cause yet another delay, much to Cueball's horror.

Real launch aborts have {{w|STS-68|occurred}} with fewer than 2 seconds left in the countdown, causing delays of over a month. (A different interpretation is that the telescope might crash into Santa, destroying both.)

According to the title text, the range safety officer has made the decision to kill Santa Claus in order to proceed with the launch. This seems to demonstrate that they are determined not to let anything else interfere with the launch any further (or that given a choice between destroying both the telescope and Santa or just destroying Santa, the range safety officer chooses the latter).

In "reality", Santa Claus performs deliveries overnight, while the launch is scheduled for morning local time, so the timing of such a collision would not occur {{Citation needed}}. Additionally, if Santa's sleigh were headed to the vicinity of Cape Canaveral, NASA would have been warned in advance by the {{w|North American Aerospace Defense Command}}, which {{w|NORAD Tracks Santa|tracks Santa}} to [https://www.noradsanta.org/en/map prevent] unwanted interference with air traffic and launching spacecrafts and attacks from anybody not believing in Christmas. Furthermore, Santa already knows about the launch because some thousands of astronomy geeks have asked a new space telescope as a Christmas present in their letters to Santa, and the easiest way for Santa to deliver such a present is just keeping at a safe distance of the launch pad.

==Transcript==
:[Close-up of the top of the James Webb Space Telescope launch rocket. A "Webb" logo can be seen alongside other indistinct logos. Some clouds and birds are visible in the background.]
:Caption: T-Minus 10...9...8...

:[Zoom-out to show the complete rocket and the ground below. The rocket takes up the bottom-left corner. At the top-right, Santa Claus and a line of reindeer are flying in towards the left.]
:Santa: Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas!

:[Ponytail and Cueball sitting at mission control consoles.]
:Cueball: ''Oh no.''


{{comic discussion}}