![]() But the United States knew the Soviets were still gathering data, as evidenced by the level of interest on the part of Soviet spy ships and aircraft. It would be five years before the United States got a good look at the similarities and another seven before the rest of the world would see it. When Columbia was launched in April 1981, the United States was well aware of the Soviet effort to copy it, but not that the Soviets had begun building the first of its orbiters - called “Buran”, Russian for “Snowstorm” - the year before. Resources including money and scientific expertise could thus be diverted to other areas.” propulsion, computer, materials, and airframe technology and designs, the Soviets were able to produce an orbiter years earlier, and at far less cost, than if they had depended solely on their own technology and engineering. Once the French learned of his death, hundreds of Soviet spies serving as diplomats were sent packing, and the “stolen technology freeze” the shuttle engineer wrote about was on.Īs the Defense Intelligence Agency later concluded in a then-classified report that drew on Vetrov’s spying, “By using U.S. By exposing the Soviet operation, he increased the awareness of technology transfer. The KGB brought him back to Moscow, interrogated him, got him to confess, and then executed him, apparently by firing squad. He had bragged in a letter to his family that he had been part of something big. Some time in the winter of 1983, Vetrov’s espionage was uncovered. We fooled them and now use tiles in the gaps.” On another page of the analysis, the anonymous engineer noted another disparity was “probably due to their stolen technology freeze in the early ’80s.”Ī NASA source says in fact the tiles were a big problem when the Soviets launched and returned the Buran in November, agreeing they were “cooked.” Is there firm public evidence the Soviets obtained defective tiles? No, but as two officials told NBC News, the United States was handing out early versions of the tiles in the late ‘70s like they were candy. ![]() With regard to the use of ablative (or adhesive) material in gaps between tiles on some surfaces, a Johnson Spaceflight Center engineer noted, “Soviets have ablative material in their elevon gaps, just like we did. shuttle design, but buried in an August 1989 technical analysis of the similarities between the two shuttles were hints of the program’s success, particularly in the development of heat-resistant tiles that protected the shuttle as it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere. ![]() In response to an NBC News Freedom of Information Act request, NASA denied it had any documents related to any Soviet effort to steal the U.S. intelligence would match Soviet requirements supplied through Vetrov with our version of those items, ones that would not - to say the least - meet the expectations of that vast Soviet apparatus.”Ĭasey was enthusiastic, and critical materials were developed, including several shuttle-related materials based on rejected NASA designs. I proposed using the Farewell material to feed or play back the products sought by, only these would come from our own sources and would have been ‘improved,’ that is designed so that on arrival in the Soviet Union they would appear genuine but would later fail. “I met with William Casey, Reagan’s Director of Central Intelligence, on a frosty afternoon in January 1982.
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