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- When the Japanese space agency JAXA bombed the asteroid Ryugu in April, it made a far bigger crater than anticipated. Additionally, the material on the surface behaved like sand, which may impact the effectiveness of deflection.

“If gravity is also dominant at Didymos B, even though it is much smaller, we could end up with a much bigger crater than our models and lab-based experiments to date have shown,” explained planetary scientist Patrick Michel of CNRS.

“Ultimately, very little is known about the behaviour of these small bodies during impacts and this could have big consequences for planetary defence.”

The DART will ram into Didymos B at 23,760 kilometers per hour (14,760mph). However, all that force will only translate into a change in the asteroid’s velocity of just a centimetre per second or so, which could change the orbital period from almost 12 hours to a mere matter of minutes.

https://www.rt.com/news/469149-earth-planetary-defences-asteroid/

- My PoV regarding the Su-57 is that it'd be an impressive fighter if it were 4th gen, it'd probably be able to outmaneuver Eurocanards, F-18s, F-16s, etc. Against 5th gen, it'll outmaneuver F-35s and probably will outmaneuver the F-22.

However, the weakness in stealth and lack of sensor fusion, as others have said, is a critical failing that prevents it from being able to compete with 5th gen in a 1v1 fight.

The trick is, though, if the Su-57 is as cheap as the Russians make it out to be, it doesn't have to be that stealthy. It could very well use true stealth aircraft to cover its approach, then kill and get killed with HOBS missiles in short-range fights and still win strategically.

Of course, as a pilot, you definitely wouldn't want to be in an Su-57, and if you were, you'd probably be fed some nostrum about how your maneuverability will save you from being bad at stealth and you'll believe it because the alternative is knowing you're cannon fodder.

That's the angle the Su-57 comes from, i.e, it's a heavyweight fighter that costs less than a middleweight fighter and has acceptable stealth characteristics. Think back to T-34 vs Tigers, as well as the fact that T-34 were supported by SU-152s and other SPGs that specialized in killing Nazi heavy tanks.

The Su-57 doesn't have to be good, provided the Russians crank enough out of the Sukhoi factories.

As for "raw materials cost to the Russian economy", the actual economics term is opportunity cost, but as I've stated before, markets mean that the opportunity cost is effectively nil because the Russians have so much difficulty getting people to uptake the raw materials.

The one last possibility about Su-57 is that the Chinese went full hog on 3D-printed titanium for their J-20s and J-31 prototypes. The advatage of 3D-printed titanium is that it both reduces weight compared to traditional titanium and cost compared to both carbon fiber and traditional titanium. Aerospace-grade carbon fiber costs between 45,000 to 220,000 per ton. Titanium powder on Alibaba can be obtained for the equivalent of 30,000 per ton.

So it's actually a riff off the MiG-25 brouhahaha, the MiG-25 was originally expected to be composed of titanium, making it an extremely agile fighter due to low wing loading. The Soviets, of course, decided to cut costs and were looking for interception anyways, so went with nickel steel instead. The Su-57, if it were using composites aggressively, would be quite lightweight and expensive. But if say, they went with titanium as a composites replacement, they'd would gain some weight but also significantly reduce costs.

The problem with this hypothesis is that it's the Chinese who have the 3D-printer technology, although it wouldn't be that challenging for the Russians have that as well.

http://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=55903&p=426968#p426968

- Chit chat doesn’t come naturally to all of us. But, as Lindsay Mannering writes in The New York Times, building rapport through casual conversation is key to thriving at work. It’s what helps our coworkers see us as the wonderful humans we are, and it inclines them to cut us some slack when we need it. To make small talk less awkward, though, remember you’re more likeable than you think. We are prone to judge our gabbing skills more harshly than our conversation partners. And it never hurts to prepare: Have a few small talk topics at the ready, so you’re not caught flat-footed when opportunity arises.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/news/how-to-survive-office-small-talk-4720500/

- The Arctic is home to at least 20-25% of the world's untapped fossil-fuel resources, along with minerals, including gold, silver, diamond, copper, titanium, graphite, uranium, and other rare earth minerals.

Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the US have established the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental cooperation forum, that holds biennial ministerial meetings on the region. It's an attempt to stabilize the Arctic and avoid conflict as corporations and governments rush into the area to seize new economic opportunities.

With the latest news of Russia militarizing the Arctic, this will not sit well with the Trump administration who has been trying to buy Greenland. The Arctic and its resources will be a major topic of the 2020s and beyond, the first to secure its military in the region could become the next superpower of the world.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/battle-arctic-russia-deploys-s-400-missile-defense-systems-control-new-frontier

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