The Story Of How The CIA Stole & Returned A Soviet Spacecraft Before Being Noticed 

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

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

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"_

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

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.

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

. **** . 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.

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.

Well, other than the missing connectors.

True.

@@KiraSlith and the truck driver.

Not a problem, the CIA used their agents from Area 51

Probably sitting among the nick knacks in the background.

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.

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.

involuntarily, but yes.

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...

Subliminal messaging

On your opponents scone = WIN

Don't scream....

A disturbing image of a Scott-Caillou hybrid just cursed me for eternity

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!"

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

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.

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

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.

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 RU-vid.

I legit thought this channel had 2 or 3 milllion subs

@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.

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

... 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 ?

"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.

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!😹

I think that's from "Rogue One".

Imagine if the Soviets pulled such a stunt, all hell would break lose

The Soviets would never have done such a thing 😉

Practice makes prefect.

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?

Did you watch my video about that?

@@scottmanley didnt know there was one?? guess I will be!

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-YDs8rz7pRLQ.html

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.

Oooh, now I gotta check back on Vintage Space...

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

Ah yes, the THOUSANDS of other non-German engineers and scientists obviously aren't responsible for making 98% of the technology /s

Well, everything has an origin story. Russia and the U.S. didn't have rockets until they imported Nazis to work on them.

@@DamianReloaded Because rockets were a new and unproven weapon system idea that had no interest, Germany just developed some half assed rockets first in a war they were desperately trying to develop new wonder weapons for. The V2 rocket was incredibly primitive. Wernher Von Braun himself stated that he was no where near as intelligent as the American rocket scientist Robert Goddard. Goddard is known as the father of rocketry, building it's founding engineering and scientific principles. He developed the first liquid fueled rocket

​@@weasle2904 And we all, of course, should take the word of a Nazi, because, who else can you trust? XD

Nah they had rockets, the rocket builders just had never been given the funding to build big rockets.

Amy Teitel from the vintage space channel covered this a couple years ago, and since she and Scott would have used the same source documents the two videos are pretty much the same in terms of facts presented.

I thought I seen it before back in 2019 a few months back..I'd have to see my history. ..

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.

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!

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.

Eyyyyy

they probably paid him off either with money or by not shooting him

Prob just just kidnapped and threatened him

Modern major General It was Mexico. I’m sure he knew how to keep his mouth shut for the right price.

Hookers and blow. What else could "Spent the night in a hotel room with CIA 'handlers'" possibly mean?