The Story Of How The CIA Stole & Returned A Soviet Spacecraft Before Being Noticed
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- Опубліковано 17 гру 2019
- 60 years ago this week an exhibition of Soviet culture and technology was touring the world, and was packing up in Mexico City to head to the next Location. However one particular item was of great interest to the CIA who were able to divert it for a few hours during transit, disassemble and document it before returning it.
This mission helped the CIA determine which manufacturers were building important pieces of the Soviet space program and also determined the capabilities of the R-7 Launch vehicle.
The CIA's own account of the operation was declassified in 1995
www.cia.gov/library/center-fo...
And some of the analysis is documented here:
nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSA...
I was reminded that this is the 60th anniversary of this event by this tweet:
/ 1206925080669958145 - Наука та технологія
3:04 is when Scott is replaced by a Soviet agent.
2:30 actually....3:04 is when he comes back.
I was expecting him to turn into Max Headroom. .. .
Soviet agent? I thought those guys broke up.
dodopod Nope, look up the 1977 film Telefon . Russia / the USSR / Soviets play the long game.
Just a glitch in the Matrix
It´s always polite to take off your shoes when entering a foreign spacecraft.
Look at this funny guy right here.
Better manners in them days😊
_"Whoa there, Johnson, what do you think you're doing? Didn't your mother teach you to take off your shoes before entering someone elses spacecraft?_
"Come on, you really think this matt-"
_"Respecting property rights is what separates us from those dang commies!"_
"Jenkins... we literally just stol-"
_"BORROWED! Overnight! With a heavy heart! For the sake of peace in the Free World!"_
"FINE, I'll take them off, geez... Don't start another of your high-falutin' lectures, just hand me the measuring tape, will ya?"
@@nibblrrr7124 Would like to see this in an anime. Or movie. 🤣
I heard (dont quote me on this) that Korolev inmediatly took a liking of Gagarin when he removed his shoes before entering Vostok 1
No doubt an agent had the foresight to bring a metric crescent wrench.
Adjustable wrench?
Sheldon Robertson still funny
Actually, an American crescent wrench can be converted to fit metric bolts with very little difficulty.
I like to image they sent one agent to the local Mexican hardware shop and he had a hilarious time not being understood, or something.
I doubt, that metric bolts is that big of a problem for bolts bigger than 10mm or so. At least, other way around it is bolt that is bigger than 6mm and smaller than 7mm (1/16 inch ?) that get you in the metric trouble. :D
Imagine telling the CIA that US astronauts would one day fly on a Soyuz without having to steal it.
Or telling to KGB that Soviet rocket engines would be sold on Ebay.
@@cogoid Or mounted on American Atlas V rockets.
@@cogoid or that their engines would be used as core boosters for American rockets
@@cogoid KGB: ¿what is this Yee-bay¿
@@kylesanders8276 Popular science literature even from 1950s has predicted a great deal of modern Internet quite accurately. But it was mostly about remote access to information, automatic translation, search engines. I am not too familiar with the subject, but I do not recall much talk about Ebay, or even Amazon, for that matter -- even though mail-order already existed for a long time...
Here is an interesting example, showing what people were able to snatch after the fall of the USSR. Video: _"Isayev S2.720 Rocket Engine"_
Cold War stories of the CIA getting in and out of places within a day or night and conducting crazy espionage or recovery missions never fail to impress me.
Yeah, kinda crazy how the CIA will just turn up one day and assassinate people, undermine foreign governments and then accuse everyone of doing exactly what they have been doing to them.. It's crazy, makes you think.
If only we could see all the ones the USSR was conducting back at everyone else.
@@uglyduckling81 yeah, huh it's funny how the CIA is so good, but somehow had no idea what the USSR was doing, oh wait, the CIA had developed according to themselves, the most elaborate network of spies and intelligence assets in the Soviet Union, close to it's collapse, this in addition to the majority of Soviet intelligence being focussed on making sure the US was not attacking them everytime they pretended to or threatened to, and on keeping the CIA out of their government so they could develop rocketry advance science &c. People tend to forget that history is written by the victor, it seems like you are eating it raw my friend. Also the US planned a bombing campaign of the soviet union with their newfound nuclear supremacy just after ww2, but unfortunately Soviet airpower was too good and they quickly established their own nuclear weapons. Huh, that's an alternative way at looking at the "evil" soviets!
@@cravinghibiscus7901 I mean they were evil, and the west betrayed poland to the Soviets
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion
Or do all that but in reverse so everyone knows about it.
When they stole the little wiring bits they should at least have left a note saying "Kilroy was here."
.
****
. o o .
. ".
.O.
Soviet elite wasn't really a trusty ones in the past and I'm wondering did they send to mexico a real hardware or a little "adjusted" one ?
They must expected some CIA involvement in this.
I wonder if someone got a free Christmas trip to some snowy place in the Soviet Union for 'forgetting to attach those plugs'....
The Russians used to say “They (the soviets) pretended to pay us so we pretended to work”. But getting caught out was seriously bad news. If anyone had spotted the break-in Nobody would have admitted to it.
It would have been a thank you, thank you, please thank you note.
So they did not fly a rocket out of a volcanic crater in Japan and capture it in space. Instead they just borrowed a truck for a few hours. Loses a bit the drama I'd say.
Space heist!
I saw that movie recently. I had to think of Starship with their reusable chomper style spacecraft that steals a Mercury capsule and a funny looking Russian ship.
"Artistic License"
The CIA can only have so many adventures. After all, they only live once.
@@houdin654jeff Nice 007 reference hehe
It takes as long to manufacture a good museum mockup as it does to build a real one, and the exhibit needed one fast -- so the factory provided a production-run extra since several were built in case of launch failures, and it was left over.
The analysis wasn't to copy the design, it was to assess the fabrication technology [alloys, electronics, fuels, etc] which also went into military missiles and warheads from the same factories, to provide reliable estimates of how powerful the ICBM warheads might be. .
Apparently at the end of the world tour the unit went back to the vendor, and later when somebody opened it to cannibalize some components, found it emptied. Nobody could even figure out in which county the snatch had occurred. So they told me.
This is like the perfect spy mission. Take a calculated risk, obtain important intelligence, and when it's all over there's no evidence you were ever there at all.
Well, other than the missing connectors.
True.
@@KiraSlith and the truck driver.
Not a problem, the CIA used their agents from Area 51
The truck driver spent the night at a hotel with "CIA handlers".
Maybe doing crossword puzzles? Probably counting his money.
They sent in a clean up team after.😜
🙄
yeah you know they fucking axed him
@Steven Strain I'm sure you're right. The CIA would have had to have gotten permission from the Chilean government when they overthrew them or the Iranian government when they overthrew *them* or the Cuban government when they tried to overthrow them or the Pakistani government when we sent in the military to capture and kill one of their residents or the American citizens who were experimented on when they were conducting mind control experiments in Project MK Ultra. The CIA would never do anything underhanded. Upstanding organization!
By the way, since you're having understanding what "CIA handlers" means in the context of entertaining a truck driver in a hotel, it was very likely to have involved the use of hired female operatives willing to engage with the driver in an intimate way.
When you said "I wonder where they are today" I thought you were going to pick up a couple of connectors and play around with them.
Probably sitting among the nick knacks in the background.
the 2:30 glitch is pretty spooky Scott
Scott is actually a Alien here to Educate in elementary space travel... LOL, just kidding... it was spooky action at a distance...
Just the CIA cutting out the secret parts, nothing to see here, move along
That's actually pretty cool
@@reklessbravo2129 true, but it put the willies up me
Scott Headroom. Max's younger brother.
So photographing the far side of the moon was a joint achievement then.
involuntarily, but yes.
The point of this for the CIA? In 1959 the R7 was the Soviet ICBM.
Quite. They wanted to know the true range of this thing.
True. Didn't the US do the same? It's been awhile but seem to remember reading that when some of the older US ICBMs were replaced they were used to launch satellites. Which makes good sense. Why waste a perfectly good rocket.
@@bigblue6917 Oh yeah, many civil rockets of the past are based off of IRBMs or ICBMs. From the top of my head I can think of these IRBM/ICBM turned space launchers:
US:
Thor (Delta)
Atlas
Titan I/II
Peacekeeper (Minotaur)
USSR/Russia:
R-7
R-36 (Tsyklon)
UR-100N (Rokot)
China:
DF-4/5 (Long March 1-4)
Exactly! It even says ICBM in the document.
@@bigblue6917 The only difference between an ICBM and orbital calls rocket in those days was whether the payload was a warhead or a third stage/satellite.
The CIA isn’t just covert operations, they are the President’s encyclopedia/Google service. Their job is more often to know what is going on in the world simply by observing and recording, not necessarily always to interfere or sabotage.
Theyre also responsible for over throwing elections abroad and at home. Of course the FBI does assist.
Not all presidents, only those proven to be career ending, deadly ones.
Shush! Nonsense
It's called "spying", no matter how cool Hollywood tries to picture it.
And in the case of Kennedy...
It makes me think about how many such operations happened on both sides (and countless others) that we'll never know about.
I always like the lo-fi intro. Makes me picture a still bald, 11 year old Scott playing with his action figures
A disturbing image of a Scott-Caillou hybrid just cursed me for eternity
I guess it is rather important, when your geopolitical opponent can launch intercontinental ballistic missiles, to know exactly how powerful the rockets that might launch those ICBMs are.
I think that's why they televised the manned vehicles returning from space. "Ha! Look at this Ivan, we're putting a payload down less than a mile from where we aimed it. Just imagine how close we could put a nuke to you! Hahahahaha!"
2:30 when you hit your elbow
Subliminal messaging
On your opponents scone = WIN
Don't scream....
Reminds me about the events that happened in France after the TU-144 crashed there; in the night, French agents were sent to the _unguarded_ crash site, stole an engine, brought it to a shop for dismantlement/analysis, reassembled it and put it back on the wreck before dawn... It allowed them to compute the operational capabilities of the Concordski, and show them that the Concorde didn't fell off his throne.
2:29 I knew Scott couldn't possibly be a real human, the simulation is glitching now!
Even now, that intro still puts a smile on my face. From an unfortunate circumstance to something I, probably many others, love.
Can I just say - thank you. Thank you for producing such great content, for being objective and simply for putting in the inordinate effort that you do - for our entertainment and increase of knowledge. I’m glad you’re able to offset some of the costs via advertising etc.
Have a great Christmas, and may UA-cam’s changes ever be in our and your favour.
"The US performs mission impossible to catch up with the Soviets"
"The Soviets stole US advanced technology"
Advertising man, advertising does all the work
Such a well put together story and something we would have never heard of if you would have took the time to entertain us. Thank you, Scott Manley.
A very nice Cold War spy story, but they could have achieved the same with a few bottles of vodka at the train station, and then work at their leisure.
Soviet elite wasn't really a trusty ones in the past and I'm wondering did they send to mexico a real hardware or a little "adjusted" one ?
They must expected some CIA involvement in this.
Nice copy-paste
Nice copy-paste
This is an awesome piece of space history! Thanks for sharing Scott, I would have never known otherwise.
Incredible story. As always a great video. Thanks Scott!
The title in my head:
American satellite with hollow inside:*approaches Soviet satellite from behind
G U L P
I had the same image, like that James Bond film where the villain was sneaking up behind spacecraft in orbit and stealing them
I had the same image, like that James Bond film where the villain was sneaking up behind spacecraft in orbit and stealing them
@@cydonianmystery5193 You Only Live Twice
The Shuttle had indeed the capability for such a mission (the concept was heavily influenced by the military), however it is not public known they ever used it to grab a non US satellite, and of course it was built much later than '59
I just imagine the cia agents were giggling deviously and victoriously the entire time
That may have been the most interesting story I've never heard before.....thanks for making this video...cheers
Fascinating story well told. Good job Scottie...
Hipperty hopperty, your spacecraft is now my property!
Dude, awesome Digging... and love the story.
Very interesting and awesome video- thank you Scott!
Excellent job researching this, Scott Manley; your conclusions were spot on. It is the little bits of misinformation, like what you mentioned, that are giving the media such a bad reputation for misrepresenting the truth in their reporting. If only they would report the cold, hard facts and leave their opinions out. Anyway, I digress. You do a wonderful job presenting your facts and I thoroughly enjoy this channel, thank you!
Who needs remakes, this is an incredible tale to turn into a movie.
Really - getting disillusioned with remake & sequel scripts.
@@HuntingTarg Midway and Ford vs Ferrari were the only two movies I bothered to watch this year. Looking forward to 1917.
Definitely. I'm actually surprised it's not been done already.
Ah yes, another time when the US realized the rest of the world likes the metric system.
UK's ..Whitworth?
That's a good example of a standard that has persisted just because it works very well, even if technically obsolete.
I’m p sure that in this timeframe most countries (Canada at least) still used the imperial system iirc
@@robertlumsden2423 no offense, but you're probably an american who has been misled. Only USA and two others use imperial, metric is the commonplace thing
@@mariasirona1622 Nah he's right. In Canada we have a bastard system of measurements. While officially Canada is metric, imperial is used a lot in daily life (thanks to the Brits and close proximity to US). Everyone just get used to knowing two systems and know how do a quick approximate conversion in their head.
Distance is usually measured in km as expected, our gas stations also charge by the liters. Everyone knows their height in ft'in" and in cm, they know their weight in lbs and kg. For science and academics, metric is always used, but when it comes to construction it is all imperial. If you talk to contractors in m, cm and mm they will laugh at you before asking you to convert all that to inches and feet. Our building supplies just follows the US, we use 1/2" or 5/8" thick drywall, our studs are framed 16" on center and all of our pipes and fittings are measured in inches.
Oddly I remember my dad telling me this ~10 years ago. Thanks for elaborating Scott!
thanks for this one Scott. Really liked this story
Great video!! You should do more on Cold war space technology. I love these stories so much
1 million subs before 2020!
Wow seems like not too long ago it was in the tens of thousands. Congrats Scott! (if you read this) Subbed in HS I'm 23 now. My very first ever channel to sub to.
This channel should absolutely have a million subs or more. It's one of the best channels on UA-cam.
I legit thought this channel had 2 or 3 milllion subs
As usual, Scott has made a very educational historical video.
2:28 amazing work sir love the glitchly goodness
Fly safe? Don't you mean.... spy safe....?
Best intro on UA-cam, let's just be honest.
Good video Scott!
Best Intro so far.... ;)
Keep up the good work. :)
so, technically borrowing it?
@Jason Buford sounds illegal. We should arrest the CIA.
It called stealing.
@Jason Buford I bet you're really fun and interesting at parties.
@@MooKyTig I mean, he isn't entirely wrong.
@@LostieTrekieTechie Okay, sock puppet.
The Soviets are typing...
... and their message still sending via the Soviet internet.
@@deep.space.12 Internet is based of off American inventions. Nearly all of the communication standards even today are American.
In cyrillic . . & we are none the wiser to this day
......бл*ть......
@@weasle2904 . . . aha, and which "American Inventions" and "American Communication Standards" do you mean ?
Interesting👍
Thanks for sharing👍😀
Your videos are always very entertaining.
In the 60', french intel (SDECE, now DGSE) started a moving company from sratch, won the deal with ussr to move planes from exhibition to exhibition. During the move, in 1 night, they dismantle 1 tupolev 104 engine, took pictures of every parts and reassembled it. France aviation program skyrocket. It was a secret until '90. Whole story by former SDECE operative Colonel Leroy-Finville in his biography.
"won the deal with ussr to move planes from exhibition to exhibition" silly idea that USSR would be using private company to do that... Soviet military pilots would just fly it from one place to another and not leave it unprotected for a minute...
" in 1 night, they dismantle 1 tupolev 104 engine, took pictures of every parts and reassembled it." you can not learn much in one night when dealing with something as compicated and it would be crazy hard to even take it apart in that short time so no time to study anything/test it...
on top of that USSR engines(like Mikulin AM-3 that was in Tu-104) was simply crapy and that is why USSR Tupolev-95 was using Kuznetsov NK-12 engines with contra-rotating propellers... and Russia is using it for exsctly that reason to this day...
That book is clearly full of stories invented by this guy to make this book interesting and he have no understanding of technical aspects of stuff like that or any understanding how communistic countries work/operate...
USSR or any other country behind Iron curtain would not use private company to move plane from one place to another even inside Russia... its just silly idea and solid prove that this story was fabricated.
gotta love the budget intro
I will take the budget intro with the space-age techno outro. Mo more 'cosmic bumper cars' plz.
Sharps Dark - done on a phone when Scott’s bag went missing in Spain (I think).
soviet spec intro; cheap and it works
@@NapoleonGelignite This was the London version after they left Spain. The X-wing is what makes me recall it that way.
@@NapoleonGelignite yeah, they got robbed
Damn Scott, creeping up on that one million sub count. Congrats in advanced!
Like the accuracy of this video. Like all your videos to be honest. Greetings from germany
Scott. The title made me think they took it out of orbit, captured it and put it back in that same orbit where it should have been.
Oh man why did they call it "Lunik" when there was an occasion to call it "Lunatik"
Excellent, as always!
I appreciate the information being presented.
oh i thought they brought it down from orbit than back up.
This would make a great Enigma Style spy movie!
That intro was the best thing I’ve seen all day
While not as ridiculous as "acoustic kitty" operation, it's really cool material to listen to!
Thanks for the awesome story (I would otherwise had not heard of ), cheers!
I wonder if they ever missed the "borrowed" components or just assumed there had bin a mix up somewhere?
zapfanzapfan I’m sure some workers/subcontractor were shouted at for “losing” it. Reminds me. Russian joke about some particularly untalented worker, who was locked in an empty room with 2 metal balls, and managed to lose one and break another one!😹
After reading the narratives, I’m convinced they did this for fun and because they could
Practice makes prefect.
Good one. More contents like this please
Great stuff as usual.
And here you are today still relying on roscosmos to take your astronauts to ISS
Truth be told, Russians are just as far behind with trying to make their own new crewed spaceship "Orel" (formerly "Federation") -- the project is already in its tenths year, and is not projected to fly until 2023. Of course, they have preserved and even upgraded the Soyuz, which evolved over many decades during Soviet era.
Good thing we have dragon from SpaceX now, and Starliner
This is the very definition of "derring-do" :D
P.S. Is that a model of the Starship Titanic on the bookcase? (top right)
I think that's from "Rogue One".
Your intro popped my lol cherry for the day, thanks.
I was excited to watch this when I read the title, I gave a thumbs up the moment I saw my favorite intro. :)
It's always interesting how when it's your own country doing these kinds of things it is cool, heroic spy stuff.
But let's imagine any other country pulling off this kind of thing....
These are the guys that sea floor lifted a sub into the Glomar Explorer. Probably nothing too valuable in either.
best PRO intro ever. I Love it!
2:30, love the editing. :)
I feel that the USSR should really be flattered more than irritated!
Imagine if the Soviets pulled such a stunt, all hell would break lose
The Soviets would never have done such a thing 😉
maybe off topic for your channel, but it would be pretty interesting to hear what other tech/hardware was stolen and adapted by either side in the cold war. the very short bit about the Russians using film from recovered CIA cameras to take pics of the far side of the moon left me with thousands of questions.
Did you watch my video about that?
@@scottmanley didnt know there was one?? guess I will be!
ua-cam.com/video/YDs8rz7pRLQ/v-deo.html
oh wow i got to this one early! yay! I love you scott!!!
I love the new intro!
Did they TRY asking for a detailed tour?
It was on exhibit.
Love how it was told by two different space nerds. Listened to Amy's a few months back.
Oooh, now I gotta check back on Vintage Space...
HUGE fan of the hand made intros!
Great intro I’m a sub already 😂
The intro still makes me laugh. Did you ever get your stuff back?
What happened? Im out of the loop
A KGB hacker named Ivan, code name Safe-Flyovitch, swiped the original intro to measure the rocket in the hopes of stealing top-secret NASA data; he still hasn't returned it.
@@Minox_ Scott got mugged on vacation in spain. they took his laptop.
@@w0ttheh3ll Ahh right, thanks.
Dude where's my rocket?
Wonder how they kept the truck driver from spilling the beans
In Mexico?
Tequila, lots of it.
He probably woke up in the truck a couple blocks from the train station with all the paperwork saying the job was done, a 3/4 empty bottle of mezcal and other "souvenirs" of of a good time to lead him to believe everything was ok, and no reason to raise a flag.
Ladies of the night?
@@kevgermany yup
This is the best intro~ please use it more.
Scott, I am so sorry to report but I just noticed I have been watching your very informative videos for quite some time and benefited accordingly and I just noticed I wasn’t subbed for some reason.
What’s weird is your vids have always showed up and I could swear that I was subbed.
Not sure if I accidentally Unsubbed; which I don’t think I ever have to any content creator so I find it a bit odd.
Anyhow, I re-subbed immediately.
Thanks for the great vid! Keep’em coming!
Well, technically that’s what communism is all about.
AFAIK the soviets were very open handed about sharing technology, but the US being the only country with a legal first strike policy and constant hyperrealistic invasion planning military exercises in close proximity. Think it's safe to say that the US does not want collaboration, they would rather steal.
@@cravinghibiscus7901 "the soviets were very open handed about sharing technology" -- only in 1990s, after USSR has collapsed and everybody was trying to profit by selling whatever they could get their hands on -- rocket engines, secret documents, you name it. Until then, even neighbors did not know what was made at the factories next door.
@@cravinghibiscus7901 the Soviet Union was one of the most bloodthirsty organizations in human history they're surpassed in recent history only by their fellow communist regimes. Anyting that was done to them was certainly justified.
@@cravinghibiscus7901 "AFAIK the soviets were very open handed about sharing technology" yea right, that is why over 100,000 of people in USSR were senteced to death or Siberia(less humane way to kill someone) for spying for western countries... only real cooperation was with Germany(Kampffliegerschule Lipezk, Panzerschule Kama) and ofc training facility for chemical weponds... Germans started WW2 in tanks made with Soviet metals, they were trained in Panzerschule Kama and burning soviet oil, to burn Europe to give Soviets excuse for intervention.
Even Tupolev got into trouble for his flight to USA with his AN-25...
and lets not forget "An Experimental Design Bureau (Russian: Опытное конструкторское бюро, Opytnoe konstruktorskoe bûro; ОКБ), commonly known as a sharashka (Russian: шара́шка, [ʂɐˈraʂkə]; sometimes sharaga, sharazhka) was an informal name for secret research and development laboratories operating from 1930 to the 1950s within the Soviet Gulag labor-camp system...".
@@Bialy_1 That is some hard core BS The soviets were begging the allies to intervene in germany, Stalin evem promised to send a million soldiers to france to help on the western front. The allies rejected this and continued giving hitler everything he wanted. Britain was hoping that Hitler would defeat the soviet union and would then surrender, that was the plan. Saying that the soviet union was anything but the singular biggest reason why most of europe does not speak german is because of the millions of soviet soldiers and partisans who faced the fiercest fighting in history. The red army did miracles to defeat the Nazis and now you blame them for it? Insane.
So what happened to the driver who sat in a hotel room with CIA agents for the night? Was he threatened by the CIA to never reveal what happened? I'm curious as to how that part all played out
Gone back to the ultra entertaining minimalist intro! Just gotta love this one!
Great video Scott
When or have you dun a video on the Yugoslav in involvement in the US space program
Reminds me of the (in)famous recovery of the MiG-25 in Japan. The Soviet defector got asylum and the Soviets got their jet back - in several boxes)
Japan has it standards. It was probably much cleaner than during take off.
@@mortisCZ as funny as the mental image of someone meticulously cleaning each part of the jet and palletising the parts, I’d think it would be better for them to have sent them the instructions for assembly as well.
The R-7 is quite the engine design that keeps on giving. I hope the engineers got some non-capitalistic perks for their efforts!
Yes, at least some people got awards and privileges. But the detailed history of its origins is quite elusive -- even though it arguably is one of the most significant rocket engines in the whole history!
Turnabout is fair play. According to the article " Cinerama : the Secret Weapon of the Cold War " in the magazine " American Heritage of Invention & Technology " ( Fall 2005 V 21, N 2 , Page 10 ). The Soviets gained access to the 1952 USA Cinerama camera / projection system and produced their own 100% compatible version called " Kinopanorama " in 1958
I love the beatbox intro. You really have to thank that guy that stole your macbook for that.
@2:30 a Time Distortion takes place...and another @3:04...
Hahahaha that intro is epic
Thanks Scott....!
I see your majestic collection behind you... Including the splashed down command pod for the Lego Saturn V... But where is it?! How dare you not have a separate shelf for it. (Just kidding. Great video, though I got distracted by your collection of items behind you. Nice to see another fan of the Lambda-class shuttle!)