Hammer Incident
Hammer Incident
[Cueball, holding a palm up in front of him, stands before a long desk, behind which is a seated panel of four people, consisting of Ponytail, Hairy, a Cueball-like guy and Hairbun. Hairy is the only one to have one arm on the desk, all other arms are held down with hands below the desk.] Cueball: Yes, I know you're mad that I dropped that hammer. Cueball: But think about me— Cueball: Seven years of bad luck!
[Caption below the panel]: Man, NASA is really on my case about the James Webb Space Telescope.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a space telescope created to be the successor of the Hubble Space Telescope under construction at time of publishing and launched December 25, 2021, though in 2014: JWST Delays , xkcd predicted its launch would actually occur during late 2026.
It's implied that Cueball dropped a hammer on the mirror of the JWST and broke it. In superstition, breaking a mirror causes seven years of bad luck. The cost estimate for the JWST is currently US$10 billion, and Cueball is at a NASA official hearing for breaking this very expensive piece of equipment, no doubt costing NASA (and thus the nation) hundreds of millions of dollars more for repair work. However, Cueball is more concerned about personally experiencing seven years of bad luck.
In actuality the mirror panel is not made of glass, so it's likely that a dropped hammer would dent and distort the panel rather than shattering it. Presumably Cueball's hammer drop would damage or destroy only one mirror panel out of the JWST's eighteen panels. (If he had destroyed the entire telescope, he would have been facing 7×18=126 years of bad luck, and the damage costs would be much higher. Then again, this depends on the altitude that the destruction happened. ) Even breaking a single panel would likely be very expensive because it would require extremely accurate machinery and extensive calibration tests to make and install a replacement panel, especially because the back of JWST's mirrors are made of beryllium. Beryllium is expensive to purchase, since it is relatively scarce, and is very hard and abrasive, so making things out of it is difficult (and expensive due to the specialized machinery required and the precautions necessary to prevent inhalation). Breaking a beryllium mirror would lead to dust formation; single exposures to beryllium dust can cause acute beryllium poisoning and massively increase the risk of lung cancer, which is very bad luck on behalf of Cueball. In addition to the property damage, Cueball is probably liable for injuring his coworkers, which is probably the main reason why the NASA workers are so angry at him because human lives are more valuable than mere money. [ citation needed ]
The title text refers to the Cold Stone Creamery , a chain that mixes ice cream with various other ingredients, such as fruit or candy, in front of the customer before serving it. The usual surface for mixing is a piece of granite which is kept cold (about -10°C). It's implied that Cueball had tried mixing his ice cream and flavorings in the style of Cold Stone Creamery on the JWST mirror, which is also kept cold -- in fact much colder, as it's cooled to as low as 7 K (-266°C, or -447°F). If Cueball had mixed ice cream this way on the JWST, he would likely have scratched and/or stained the surfaces on the telescope and perhaps have gotten gunk into the instrumentation, and possibly, due to the localized temperature differential from ice cream hundreds of degrees warmer than the material, promoted damaging distortions or fractures -- hardly the 'good idea' mentioned in the title text.  (It also would not have worked: at sufficiently low temperatures, ice cream hardens and cannot be mixed.)
The bad luck from breaking a mirror is also referenced in 1136: Broken Mirror .
[Cueball, holding a palm up in front of him, stands before a long desk, behind which is a seated panel of four people, consisting of Ponytail, Hairy, a Cueball-like guy and Hairbun. Hairy is the only one to have one arm on the desk, all other arms are held down with hands below the desk.] Cueball: Yes, I know you're mad that I dropped that hammer. Cueball: But think about me— Cueball: Seven years of bad luck!
[Caption below the panel]: Man, NASA is really on my case about the James Webb Space Telescope.
