The world’s most pointless rocket has been launched at last

The world’s largest rocket got there in the end. NASA, America’s space agency, has been trying to fly the Space Launch System (SLS) since August 29th, but technical problems (and later a hurricane) have meant repeated delays. However, on November 16th, at a little before two o’clock in the morning, Florida time, it actually managed to blast off. This nocturnal launch, dictated by the vagaries of celestial mechanics, gave rocket-watchers a rare treat, as the vehicle’s white-hot exhaust lit up the countryside for miles around.

The SLS’s destination (or, rather, the destination of Orion, the capsule it carries) is the Moon—almost, for it will not land. This version of Orion is uncrewed. But others will, if all goes to plan, return astronauts to the lunar surface half a century after the end of the Apollo programme. That project, called Artemis, after Apollo’s twin sister (who was the Ancient Greek goddess of the Moon, and thus, in any case, a more appropriate moniker than Apollo, the god of the Sun), will use the SLS as its launch vehicle. But Artemis 1, as the mission which has just begun is formally dubbed, will restrict itself to dropping off a few hitchhikers in the form of so-called cubesats that will carry out scientific studies of variable worth, and then making some complicated loops around the Moon before returning home on December 11th.