The bombastic, 53-second long video feels like the trailer for a disaster flick. There is Xtreme sports music but no words, save a YouTube description at the bottom: "NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) will be the world’s most powerful rocket ever built for deep space missions, including to an asteroid and ultimately to Mars."

Advertisement

NASA describes the SLS as "an advanced launch vehicle for a new era of exploration beyond Earth’s orbit into deep space… Offering the highest-ever payload mass and volume capability and energy to speed missions through space, SLS will be the most powerful rocket in history and is designed to be flexible and evolvable, to meet a variety of crew and cargo mission needs."

Intriguing, but not as intriguing as:

Advertisement
Advertisement

or:

Advertisement

This is not the first time that NASA has used video to make their science more sexy.

This supersonic parachute test video features mechanical engineer Mike Meacham using the phrase: "You wanna go to Mars, you wanna go big?… you've got to be a little crazy sometimes if you want to do the crazy things."

Advertisement

He also hosts a web series called "Crazy Engineering." Which is crazy:

Advertisement

This 7-minute long video shows pretty tame images, but features very (very) dramatic music. And it's called "Orion Trial By Fire."

Advertisement

Whatever it takes, scientists.

Danielle Wiener-Bronner is a news reporter.