They did eventually participate. While their initial behaviour wasn’t the best, I also understand why they dragged their feet. There was a definite witch hunt going on, for someone to blame. Once that calmed down, they did actually help with investigating it.

Ultimately, it’s of mostly academic interest. Where do we need to tighten down on things to avoid a repeat incident. The best answer would be “Both”.

Also, do you have a link to any papers talking about the man-made origin theory? I’ve not checked in a while, but last time I looked it sent me down a lot of rabbit holes, with nothing ultimately backing it up.

I viewed the movie as a play on the propaganda within the universe of the book (roughly the equivalent of films like “black hawk down”).

A movie playing it straight could be interesting. My only concern is how it will resonate with the current political situation. The original book was far more subtle in its view on fascism. It could easily turn into a fascist call to arms.

The complication is the double jump.

In the early days of COVID, there were 2 strains spreading. One of those fizzled out and disappeared after a few weeks. Genetically, they seemed to be independent jumps. A single mistake wouldn’t account for this.

It’s also worth noting that the first known infected all spent time in Wuhan wildlife market. They got fairly good tracking from mobile phones, even if the direct evidence was destroyed by the containment/cleaning effort.

Basically, the surrounding evidence doesn’t fit an accidental leak (2 jumps). It doesn’t really fit an intentional release (very geographically focused). It is consistent with it jumping from a sustained infection pool in the market. (Multiple jumps from the same small area at different times).

This is textbook toxic masculinity.

A lot of people misuse the term, but this is an excellent example. The men involved lose out on something amazing due to it being ‘unmanly’.

The ISS has been pinholed by debris a few times. Likely paint. The shuttle was damaged by foam breaking off, amongst other events.

By comparison orbital velocity is around 7km/s, while a bullet is around 0.367km/s. Any mismatch will push debris up to bullet speeds easily.

As for relativistic speeds. C is 300,000km/s assuming you get up to 1/3C (barely relativistic) you are moving at 100,000km/s or 14,000x faster than the ISS moves, or 39000x faster than a bullet. A 10g rock would hit with 10kilotons of energy. About 2/3 the energy of the first atom. bombs.

It’s actually a legit concern with any (hypothetical) interstellar mission. Even hydrogen atoms will hit with significant force. Dust hits like nukes, and an asteroid is just game over.

The maxim used in a lot of sci-fi is an ablative armour plate. Often in the form of ice. Interstellar ships would likely aldo be needle like, to minimise their cross section. We could also use electric and/or magnetic fields to move smaller particles out of the way.

As for densities, I believe it’s a couple of hydrogen ions per m^3 . Dust is rarer, but still present. It’s only bigger rocks that are rare enough to just hope to avoid.