Nightfly (whom you can totally picture, right?) is our project manager in charge of “randomizing” the lotto games in each state. Nightfly writes in to solve a problem quite honestly the Czar was not having…but it illustrates how breath-takingly smart our readership is:

Dread and awesome Czar:

As always, you are both timely and gracious. The Media Guild would never have told us the truth behind the cancellation of the Shuttle program; now all is made clear. Our government killed the program in favor of the risky “Operation Mondas” probe to the far side of the sun.

I observe with sadness that they couldn’t even get that right, smacking into the opposite number heading our way for a neighborly visit. This is quite sad. The most efficient way to make such a trip, in theory, would be to head off in the opposite direction of your own planet’s orbit, anticipating the arrival of the other planet in due course… perhaps cutting off a little of the distance around by skirting deeper into the solar system. Had both of our worlds done this, no collision would be possible, as the trip would have been on opposite sides of our shared orbital path.

This means that one of us quite foolishly took the long way ’round, traveling at ludicrously-unsafe speed trying to catch the other world as it shot off ahead. Considering the state of things lately with our government, I fear greatly that it had to have been us. It would have been much safer and more efficient to simply leave Earth’s orbit and hang around, waiting for the other folks to arrive in six months. Truly a story fit for our times.

Your obedient,
nightfly

The Czar admits he likes this solution: not just because it works, but as Nightfly points out, it screws the other guys. Oh well; looks like we got ourselves a new head of space flight practical jokes. Congrats!

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.