The real vorpal sword?

[WizarDru]

Anyone know what a Russian Cosmonaut is doing with a machete?

To fight the Space Goat.

duh.

 

[Pbartender]

Russian Cosmonauts are armed with machetes and shotguns, because, as opposed to early US rockets, their command pods would make their parachute landings on land instead of splashing down in water...

There are a lot of wild animals out in the middle of Siberia, and it could take some time for your comrades to find you.

To elaborate, a news story from last year...

It's not the first time a Russian spacecraft has missed the mark.

In 1976, a Soyuz spacecraft came down in a freezing squall and splashed into a lake; the crew spent the night bobbing in the capsule.

Eleven years before that, two cosmonauts overshot their touchdown site by 1,200 miles and found themselves deep in a forest with hungry wolves. That's when Russian space officials decided to pack a sawed-off shotgun aboard every spacecraft.

 

[Zappo]

a score is 20

And 20 is a score. A critical one, in fact. With a vorpal, that means trouble.