Rocket exhibit at National Space Centre pulls off unintentional NASA SLS impression

BORK!BORK!BORK! The National Space Centre in England took things a little too far with its simulation of a rocket launch, unless it was seeking to recreate NASA's leaking Space Launch System (SLS) via a plastic bottle and some water. The Leicester-based museum features exhibits aplenty, including some rockets to gawp at, an intriguing parafoil-equipped Gemini capsule, a planetarium, and lots of interactive stations to educate and inform visitors about the space age. Some of those interactive exhibits can, however, be a little too realistic for comfort, such as a bottle rocket intended to illustrate the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union. It's a simple enough concept. Select a rocket type, learn some stuff about it, watch as a water bottle is pressurized, listen to the countdown, and then liftoff! It's an activity that kids - and adults - might have attempted in a garden or park. Things didn't go as planned at the National Space Centre, and was reminiscent of the repeated leaks NASA's SLS suffered during launch preparations. Where the exhibit's Soviet Union's bottle blasted off as expected, the American one did not. It spewed water from the base in an unintended recreation of NASA's initial attempts to fuel the SLS, before giving a pathetic twitch when the countdown reached zero. Still, it could have been worse. Had the museum decided to recreate the failure of the Soviet Union's N1 Moon rocket, or Blue Origin's explosive test of its New Glenn this week, onlookers might have needed a change of clothes after a sudden, and very watery, boom. The interactive display might not be quite what the museum intended, but it indicates that even in the high-tech world of the space age, the curse of bork is never far away. Unless, of course, the plan was always to remind users of SLS leakage, if not the explosive excesses of today's commercial providers. The National Space Centre told us: "We currently have one water rocket out, the USA rocket. There are these bands that are needed to keep the bottle in place within its frame, the bands for that rocket snapped a few times recently so we have run out of spares and are waiting on parts be delivered for it to be back in action, but the soviet rocket is completely fine and has been all week." (R)