DDE

Residents of Kaluga get their first close look at a tall Gagarin monument in decades... are shocked It's not clear when or how this happened, because it's not a camera issue, and his face did not use to look like that.

Hey, he's changed his mind, he's pro-vacs now! ...I think. Sadly, he changes his mind on virtually everything, in supposedly random but usually highly unfortunate patterns. Now, lest this thread becomes too short on dark humour:

@kerbiloid Had an abrupt cancellation yesterday. Recovered everything, I think.

There's containment and there's containment. But yeah, the US consistently seems to plunge new depths in perverse incentives and vicious cycles.

The elimination of a mechanical link under constant mechanical loads arguably means less complexity.

Azipods and their various relatives seem extremely common among civilian vessels. Yet they aren't seen on warships, outside of the various retractable auxiliary thrusters. Why?

Yeah, just received strict orders to take the laptop home and be prepared for the office to be shuttered without prior notice. Had at least one case from Iran spend the night in a Moscow pod hotel at the airport. At this point, it's fairly likely we have an undetected infection spreading under the cover of seasonal flu. It's not like the US, where a COVID test costs an arm and a leg - back here in Russia you can't even volunteer for a test at all. Edit: oh, look, we just got a case of an arrival from Milano... naturally, the six people who shared the hospital room with him have been pressed into signing NDAs. https://m.lenta.ru/news/2020/03/01/molchat/

KREPP with thorium seems like a superior bet. Initial uranium would have to be imported, but locally-bred U-233 would suffice for bombs.

It is at this point they might consider integration rather than extermination. An Earth with such natives is clearly more valuable and productive than an Earth without.

Arrow Mk 0: what is a 'Reentry Vehicle', anyway? https://imgur.com/a/A6E5PZq

Not every circle is an astrobleme. Meet the Kondyor massif on Russia's Pacific coast. Not an astrobleme - just a magmatic extrusion. Looks like a part of the Aldan Shield, too.

"You're throwing snowballs at a 'killer whale' and don't expect retaliation?" https://www.livescience.com/3284-scientist-snowball-fight-killer-whale.html

...I have the door controls, and they don't have spacesuits. Somehow. For fixed-wing I'm hearing it's more like 10 hours at this point.

Ooooh, salvage rights. Who do we bill? abort abort abort

@Spacescifi, I think you just re-invented Brilliant Pebbles

So Russia and Belgium got WHO's praise for their 'aggressive' response, eliminating the spread entirely. Meanwhile, the Moscow government has launched a 'deratization' campaign, which risks turning into a massacre of all stray animals. And now for some mildly political on-topic content!

What, again?

I could tell you, but then I'd have to [redacted] The desire is clearly there; their proponents view them as not falling under CNBT and free of all the usual political and moral hazards of tacnukes - and there always was a demand for nuclear weapons with the lowest possible barrier for use among US nuclear strategists. Necessity, or in the case the DARPA RFP, is the mother of invention.

...then we suspended air travel with South Korea

Nope, not once the results are diluted. That, and you have certain warhawks from a certain pentagonal building clamoring for a pure fusion warhead to put on their cruise missiles ever since the late 1990s.

Big "if". Whereas with nuclear ordnance, no such "ifs" are required.

Two things with different underlying physical principles are different. Shocker. Annihilation produces gamma rays, fission produces gamma rays and neutrons. An annihilation bomb should produce zero fallout.

It's a problem that, historically, has resolved itself to a certain very ugly and bloody but reliable solution - just ask Conan the Barbarian. But instead, even with China's relatively nonexistent welfare system, this bulge might prove its undoing.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the format is working out for me. And because I can't go too far ahead of the written version, this does affect my ability to play. Therefore, I'm going for the lazy 'stand-up guy' edition: no narration, maximum pictures! Today: the MeK-109, a fighter jet for which the cash-stripped gang has to develop a RATO https://imgur.com/a/RRdAWth