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NASA Administrator Charles Bolden unveiled the world's largest welder on Friday at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. The 170-foot-tall welder will be used to
construct NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which will be the world's most powerful rocket. The welder will assemble the pieces of the SLS's core stage, which includes
putting together domes, rings, and barrels. The core stage will store cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen for the rocket's missions. The rocket, which will be more than 212 feet
tall when completed, will launch astronauts "farther into deep space than ever before possible," _Universe Today_ reports. The SLS will take crews from NASA's Orion deep
space capsule to Mars and to asteroids. SUBSCRIBE TO THE WEEK Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives. SUBSCRIBE & SAVE SIGN UP
FOR THE WEEK'S FREE NEWSLETTERS From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. From our morning news
briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. "This rocket is a game changer in terms of deep space exploration and will launch
NASA astronauts to investigate asteroids and explore the surface of Mars while opening new possibilities for science missions," Bolden said at the ceremony. "The road to Mars
starts at Michoud." The SLS's maiden test launch will be held in November 2018, and associate administrator Robert Lightfoot said at the event that the SLS will help humans reach
Mars by the 2030s. --_Meghan DeMaria_ Explore More Speed Reads