Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2012 – Before I enter yet another rambling entry about CW keys, I first have to make a detour — in history.
BACK IN TIME …. Let’s pretend that I am the 1960s cartoon penguin Tennessee Tuxedo. (I know, I know, Chumley was the fat one, not Tennessee, but go with me on this.)
Now you, me and Chumley are going to visit Phineas J. Whoopee and take a trip in his Way Back Machine. Chumley, set the dial for 1960, Eastern Europe.
Ah-HA! We’re in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, a country that was a conglomeration of states that have since divided now and are separate countries. But in 1960, they were united as one Soviet republic, with President Tito keeping things under his thumb with help from the Kremlin.
Communist Soviet Union has been eating the U.S. space program’s breakfast for several years, and the U.S. is desperate to reverse this trend. According to the trailer for a new documentary, the U.S. turned to Yugoslavia for help.
According to the documentary, Yugoslavia began a covert space program in 1948, building most of it underground. One of the country’s scientists who worked to solve problems of space travel wrote a book in the 1920s and created extensive drawings and diagrams. His work prompted others — including Werner VonBraun — to take up where he left off.
At the end of World War II, when the Allies were snatching up technology, they did not find the complete works of the Yugoslav scientist — but Tito did later, and built a huge space program in its wake.
The CIA discovered the Yugoslav space program in 1960, and in March 1961, the U.S. purchased the entire space program from the Yugoslav government. Two months later, President John F. Kennedy declared the U.S. would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. The documentary apparently assumes it was no accident that JFK made the announcement two months after the purchase of the Yugoslav space program: Without the purchase, the U.S. would have continued to struggle. The purchase is depicted as the key to the rapid development of the U.S. space program.
The trailer shows images showing Tito touring NASA facilities, and claims that some components of the U.S. program were built in Yugoslavia, including portions of the Saturn V and Apollo module.
It’s a fascinating look at history, and while I’m skeptical of the claim the purchase was key to the U.S. space program, I suspect it would have provided an additional body of knowledge of the Soviet space program as well as technology unique to Yugoslavia.
Thanks to generous U.S. funding, Yugoslavia’s economy got a huge boost, and Tito enjoyed a lavish lifestyle, presumably thanks to American financial support.
It’s the first time I have heard of the U.S.-Yugoslavia space program link, and it will be fascinating to see the full documentary — partly because they promise to visit the secret underground base that housed the country’s space program. The trailer promises to show the “untouched remains” of the country’s space program in its underground facilities.
The documentary — or docudrama as it calls itself — is titled “Houston, We Have A Problem!” and is slated for release next year.
Well Chumley, its time to zip our guests into the Way Back Machine and back to 2012. Perhaps we should set the time dial to the end of the college basketball season so we won’t have to suffer watching University of Kentucky and U of L play poorly and then try to save themselves … hmm…
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