3 ms·

I was fortunate enough to visit Star City while in Russia in 2004 or so. There is a statue of Yuri Gagarin there, and according to an engineer at the facility,

by earl 16y ago

I was fortunate enough to visit Star City while in Russia in 2004 or so. There is a statue of Yuri Gagarin there, and according to an engineer at the facility, it is a popular place to get married. I don't have a hard time believing that either the USSR or the USA would have hidden space deaths if they or we could in order to build a national mythology.

archgoon 16y ago
It would have required both sides to agree to that mythology. As the article points out, we knew when things went wrong with them (via the NSA), and chances are sooner or later they'd find out when things went wrong with us (via the KGB). It would have required not only secrecy on their half, but secrecy on our half.
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago
  I don't find it that hard to believe that it was bilateral. At first it gives too much up to show how much detail one knows about the other side. Then one doesn't want to announce your own deaths because the other side hasn't and you don't want to appear to be losing/weaker/less capable. If you leak the deaths on the other side then they'll leak yours (like a sort of mutually assured destruction) and possibly cause an end to space exploration programmes - neither side that knows enough wants to do that surely? tl;dr seems reasonable to me that both sides may have had more deaths they all kept secret about
- hammock 16y ago
  Prisoner's dilemma. Easily solved by cooperation.
iuguy 16y ago
To be fair this would've worked for the US military up to the Mercury program or the very early Vostok program. We know that the USSR did indeed hide deaths[1]. [1] - http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/1302/lost_in_space.html http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/1302/lost_in_s...
- hernan7 16y ago
  "we know" ... "Fortean Times" ... does not compute

3 ms·

I was fortunate enough to visit Star City while in Russia in 2004 or so. There is a statue of Yuri Gagarin there, and according to an engineer at the facility,

by earl 16y ago

archgoon 16y ago
It would have required both sides to agree to that mythology. As the article points out, we knew when things went wrong with them (via the NSA), and chances are sooner or later they'd find out when things went wrong with us (via the KGB). It would have required not only secrecy on their half, but secrecy on our half.
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago
  I don't find it that hard to believe that it was bilateral. At first it gives too much up to show how much detail one knows about the other side. Then one doesn't want to announce your own deaths because the other side hasn't and you don't want to appear to be losing/weaker/less capable. If you leak the deaths on the other side then they'll leak yours (like a sort of mutually assured destruction) and possibly cause an end to space exploration programmes - neither side that knows enough wants to do that surely? tl;dr seems reasonable to me that both sides may have had more deaths they all kept secret about
- hammock 16y ago
  Prisoner's dilemma. Easily solved by cooperation.
iuguy 16y ago
To be fair this would've worked for the US military up to the Mercury program or the very early Vostok program. We know that the USSR did indeed hide deaths[1]. [1] - http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/1302/lost_in_space.html http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/1302/lost_in_s...
- hernan7 16y ago
  "we know" ... "Fortean Times" ... does not compute