X-Nico

5 unusual facts about Soviet space program


Soviet space program

According to author/historian James Andrews, “With almost no exceptions, coverage of Soviet space exploits, especially in the case of human space missions, omitted reports of failure or trouble”.

Although the Americans had secretly moved most leading German scientists and 100 V-2 rockets to the United States in Operation Paperclip the Russian program greatly benefited from captured German records and scientists, in particular drawings obtained from the V-2 production sites.

“For example the Vostok spacecraft was referred to as ‘object IIF63’ while its launch rocket was ‘object 8K72K’”.

“The USSR was famously described by Winston Churchill as ‘a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma’ and nothing signified this more than the search for the

Space Dogs

During the end credits, real-life archive footage from the Soviet Space Program and Space Dogs is shown.


Orlan space suit

They have been used for spacewalks (EVAs) in the Russian space program, the successor to the Soviet space program, and by space programs of other countries, including NASA.


see also

Space Dogs

After being caught the dogs are put on a train to Baikonur where they ended up at a Soviet space program training center.

Voskhod 1

The Soviet space program viewed its crews as passengers more than pilots; the new cosmonauts received only three to four months of training, perhaps the briefest in space history other than that received by the American politicians Jake Garn and Bill Nelson for Space Shuttle flights in the 1980s.