
Two Italian radio hackers vs. The Soviet Union's space program - jdub
http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/1302/lost_in_space.html
======
Luyt
For a skeptical view: <http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4115> (Search for the
Missing Cosmonauts)

 _"Am I saying Achille and Giovanni were hoaxers? Far from it. In fact, in
researching their story, I gained tremendous respect for their abilities and
for what they accomplished. [...] Unfortunately their story is too often told
without critique or inquiry into the plausibility of their most extraordinary
claims. There are simply too many other possible explanations for their
recordings to comprise useful evidence of lost cosmonauts."_

------
Luc
This story keeps resurfacing every year or so. It's bogus.

[http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2433/are-there-
real...](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2433/are-there-really-lost-
cosmonauts-stranded-in-space)

~~~
yardie
Yeah, the rest of it sounds pretty reasonable, but the SOS one is sort of
impossible that early in the space race. To reach escape velocity they would
have to build and launch a Delta-III like rocket. And then scale back the
later launches to ICBM based rockets? Yeah right!

But, and this is highly unlikely (but I'm trying to remember from astrophysics
class), if the spacecraft was going fast enough (but not necessarily escape
velocity) and entered the atmosphere at a shallow angle it could skip across
the surface of the atmosphere until it achieved enough speed to escape orbit.

But that is highly, highly unlikely. Unless Russian scientists were born with
Jedi powers of astromechanics.

~~~
eru
How would skipping across the atmosphere give you more energy than you started
with?

------
alx
There was an excellent presentation at the 26C3 last winter about these
records:

[https://events.ccc.de/congress/2009/Fahrplan/speakers/2755.e...](https://events.ccc.de/congress/2009/Fahrplan/speakers/2755.en.html)

Unfortunatly, I can't find a link to the presentation record.

~~~
ugh
Here you go:
[http://events.ccc.de/congress/2009/Fahrplan/events/3710.en.h...](http://events.ccc.de/congress/2009/Fahrplan/events/3710.en.html)

~~~
draven
link does not work, but it seems there are lots of mirrors:
[http://mirror.informatik.uni-
mannheim.de/pub/ccc/26C3/mp4/26...](http://mirror.informatik.uni-
mannheim.de/pub/ccc/26C3/mp4/26c3-3710-en-the_lost_cosmonauts.mp4)

------
VladRussian
comparatively to other exploratory endeavors of the human species, notably in
particular - long distance naval explorations and developing of airplanes -
the official history of space exploration has too few casualties and
catastrophes. Such successful story looks especially suspiciously considering
heavy political pressure and micro-management, at least in the Soviet Union
space program. May be it is really not a rocket science to fly into space?

Btw, i really liked "Armageddon". In Russia it was politicized as an assault
on the glorious Russian space history. I don't know or pretend to know much
about it, yet the little i heard from the people involved in the program in
'80-'90s perfectly matches "Armageddon" in spirit :)

Don't get me wrong though - the history of the space exploration is glorious,
and there is no need to add to or withdraw from it.

------
mootothemax
It's a great read, but if it were true, why wouldn't the USA or one of its
allies have released the same information? It would have been one hell of a
propaganda coup!

That said, I can imagine a true conspiracy believer dismissing this with talk
of the Illuminati or Bilderberg meetings... guess you just can't win!

~~~
eru
Oh, that's easy: The USA didn't release the information, because they did not
want the Soviets to retaliate by revealing that the Americans had never been
on the moon.

(You can always rescue a conspiracy theory from the facts.)

------
ANH
I can always count on the Fortean Times to spark my imagination. The rational
mind needs regular holidays in the land of the weird.

------
etm117
Just a fantastic read. I am amazed that they were able to build all this stuff
by hand whereas millions was spent by US and Russians for similar setups.
Also, I couldn't imagine being watched by the KGB back in the day. It must
have been no fun to walk around at night.

------
InclinedPlane
A much more worthwhile, and factually based, read:
<http://www.jamesoberg.com/usd10.html>

~~~
mootothemax
I have a lot of respect for James Oberg, his posts in the various Usenet
space-related groups are great:

<http://yarchive.net/space/>

------
adlep
This is very interesting story. Thanks for posting this OP!

