DDE

You're talking about a Soyuz-2.1b. Otherwise known as the standard stack for Soyuz-2.1a. They're racking up launches for the same tech on the 2.1b, and I think they still have several unmanned qualification Soyuz flights on the manifest. The second stage - unless you're using Western terminology - is ignited using the PZU, which is two flares on a birch stick shoved up each of the 32 nozzles. Not sure the third stage does much better. Could be the job for the vaguely researched Fregat-Soyuz stack.

@farmerben, I can tell you they exist. Fadeev V V “Ultraviolet Lasers Using Organic Scintillators” Soviet Physics Uspekhi 13 409–410 (1970) They get a very brief, uninformative mention by our nukes and lasers brain trust from Sarov here. The 2008 monography they reference as background reading is not available online. However, a passing observation is that all these systems tend to be pumped by neutrons, fission fragments, or thermal radiation - not gammas.

Voidsmen, sound off! Let me just add this article: https://thespacereview.com/article/3927/1 It's a lot more immediate than that. The old SDI funded Clementine to seek out water on the Moon in order to secure a propellant source for space-based missile defence operations. Agreed. The organization's stated goals always made 'Orbit Guard' vastly more appealing.

One thing I've noticed among Star Citizen's fictional spacecraft is the considerable occurrence of a cockpit ingress system similar that of the Tu-22: where the seat slides down out of the cockpit and through the hull. Can anyone muster any other aircraft where this is the case? The Blinder seems like a very obscure inspiration.

There's a Mars-500 follow-up I didn't know about.

Moscow serological study reports 12,5% of the population has antibodies, random normalized sample, n = 70000, will push for 3-6 mln. https://amp.rbc.ru/rbcnews/society/23/05/2020/5ec8cc1c9a7947213bff4b6a This is insanely high, and means barely a tenth of all cases have been identified. ...there's also strong evidence that whoever tests positive to antibodies is immediately sent into the standard 14-day quarantine.

The bigger problem is the lack of a Tortuga during the mid-century: no real way to fence the goods. This has changed dramatically and there are now several largely lawless areas that still have the logistical and economic base to launder the booty. Take for example the thefts of tanker cargo in the Strait of Malacca in the early 2010s.

What if search and rescue is your job?

Wasted the night. It looks interesting, but it is at the same time a very limited tech demo... and incredibly unapproachable due to all the "immersion".

Thought about joining this week's Star Citizen free-to-play event to see what $300 mln look like. Then I saw the list of mundane bugs like guns not firing... I'll have to think about it again.

EKS Tundra №3

Where do I even put these guys?

nopleasemakeitstop! *screams incoherently*