wickwick event
A catastrophic failure of the first launch of the NASA SLS rocket, which destroys enough of the ground systems to scuttle the program.
Since the first launch is uncrewed, this could happen without any loss of human life, and is widely regarded as the best possible outcome of the program, finally ringing a death knell to decades of pork and throwing good money after bad. If the Wickwick event occurs, thousands of skilled NASA employees and contractors, squandering their productive years on the dead-end SLS program, will be freed up to pursue more fruitful endeavors in the field.
Named after an Ars Technica reader and commentor named Wickwick, who proposed this outcome and explained why it would be overall a good thing, in a comment thread in early 2022.
Since the first launch is uncrewed, this could happen without any loss of human life, and is widely regarded as the best possible outcome of the program, finally ringing a death knell to decades of pork and throwing good money after bad. If the Wickwick event occurs, thousands of skilled NASA employees and contractors, squandering their productive years on the dead-end SLS program, will be freed up to pursue more fruitful endeavors in the field.
Named after an Ars Technica reader and commentor named Wickwick, who proposed this outcome and explained why it would be overall a good thing, in a comment thread in early 2022.
Everyone's tuning in to the launch webcast to see if we get a Wickwick Event, or if the SLS boondoggle continues sucking the air out of NASA.
wickwick event by Not Linking My Identity Here August 23, 2022
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