A number of years ago the Soviet Union toured several countries with an exhibition of its industrial and economic achievements. There were the standard displays of industrial machinery, soft goods, and models of power stations and nuclear equipment. Of greater interest were apparent models of the Sputnik and Lunik space vehicles. U.S. intelligence twice gained extended access to the Lunik, the second time by borrowing it overnight and returning it before the Soviets missed it. This is the story of the borrowing, which required the efforts of many people and close cooperation between covert and overt intelligence components.

This document was released prior by the CIA, but multiple redactions hid an important fact. Three different versions of the release are below for comparison. The un-redacted information reveals that the CIA was able to read factory markings / stamps that allowed them to trace down where the hardware was created along with the components used.

Document Archive

THE KIDNAPPING OF THE LUNIK By Sydney Wesley Finer, 1967 [10 Pages, 3.6MB]

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The post THE KIDNAPPING OF THE LUNIK By Sydney Wesley Finer, 1967 first appeared on The Black Vault.

According to the summary of the memorandum:

“Three unmanned lunar launchings this year, together with other new evidence and further analysis, clearly indicate a continuing strong Soviet interest in lunar exploration. We still cannot state conclusively, however, that the Soviets are in a race with the US for a manned lunar landing. On balance, we have no basis for changing our earlier estimate that the chances are better than even that the Soviets will seek to accomplish a manned lunar landing ahead of or in close competition with the US. It remains possible nevertheless, that Soviet lunar objectives are less ambitious.”

Previously, this document was released before, with heavy redactions in paragraph 12. The original release was sent to the National Security Archive.  In March of 2019, The Black Vault requested a Mandatory Declassification Review (MDR) request to the CIA for a review of the record. Below, is the result.

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Soviet Intentions Concerning Manned Lunar Landing, 25 April 1963 [12 Pages, 4.2MB]

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Between Sputnik’s launching in October 1957 and the lunar landing in July 1969 America sponsored five human spaceflight projects. NASA’s Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo were well publicized and to varying degrees Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson used them as tools for garnering international prestige in the cold war competition with the Soviet Union. However, Dynasoar and the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) of the DoD were largely classified and fundamentally oriented toward the military mission of reconnaissance. This study examines the NASA-DoD relationship with a special emphasis on these two sets of projects by asking three questions. First, what did each president believe about using space exploration as a cold war competitive tool? Eisenhower was not at all keen on such a construct: he did not believe the US should race to the moon in search of prestige. Kennedy did and reoriented American space policy toward the moon. Johnson continued this lunar landing goal but refused to expand American space policy beyond it as he grappled with the demands of Vietnam and the Great Society. Second, what was the institutional relationship between NASA and the DoD? This relationship was a complex one involving simultaneous support, coordination, and rivalry under all three presidents. However, over the course of twelve years NASA achieved greater independence while lessening its reliance on the DoD.

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The Evolution of the NASA-DoD Relationship from Sputnik to the Lunar Landing, Published April 18, 1997 [669 Pages, 16.1MB]

The post The Evolution of the NASA-DoD Relationship from Sputnik to the Lunar Landing, Published April 18, 1997 first appeared on The Black Vault.

Space – A Collection of Articles [109 Pages, 12.1MB]

The following foreign intelligence papers were received from the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) and were housed at the Foreign Technology Division (FTD) of Wright Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB).

It consists of early 1960s intelligence, of papers written by Soviet scientists, in regards to space related questions, such as, interstellar travel, extraterrestrial civilizations and planet atmospheres.

The papers included in this release were:

Interstellar Flights, by K. P. Stanyuk ovich and V. A. Bronshten

Creation of Habitable Medium in Future Space Flights of Man, byA. A. Nichiporovich

Astronautics and Extraterrestrial Civilizations, by V. I. Krasovskiy

Problems of Interstellar Communication, by G. Kokkori and F. Morrisons

Study of Interplanetary Gas and Ionospheres of Planets With the Help of Traps of Charged Particles, by K. I. Gringauz

I received these under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and archive them here for reference.

Declassified Documents

Space – A Collection of Articles [109 Pages, 12.1MB]

https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/space/AD0608184.pdf

The post Space – A Collection of Soviet Papers from the Early 1960s first appeared on The Black Vault.

Every effort has been made to provide as accurate a translation as practicable. Soviet propaganda has not been deleted, as it is felt that such deletion could reduce the value of the translation to some portion of the intelligence community.

Political and technical phraseology of the original text has been adhered to in order to avoid possible distortion of information.

 A History of Soviet Aviation and Cosmonautics, January 1965 [141 Pages, 8.2MB]

https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/coldwarera/AD491682.pdf

The post A History of Soviet Aviation and Cosmonautics, January 1965 first appeared on The Black Vault.

Below are declassified and released records regarding the Space Race.

 The Deadlock of the Space Race, 27 May 1993 [82 Pages, 16.5mb]

 Five Years of Soviet Space Investigation [29 Pages, 12.23mb]

 Launch on Demand [48 Pages, 3mb]

 Proceeding of Meeting on Problems and Techniques Associated with the Decontamination and Sterilization of Spacecraft, June 29, 1960 [60 Pages, 18.48MB] – A meeting was held of representatives of agencies concerned with the development of space vehicles and those investigating decontamination and sterilization procedures. Recommendations resulting from the deliberations include: (1) a body of related information be accumulated, (2) standard operating procedures be established, (3) acceptable limits of contamination be determined, (4) NASA policy be clarified, (5) new sterilizing agents be developed, (6) compatibility studies be pursued, (7) sterile manufacture of parts be investigated, and (8) a working level group should be formed to implement recommendations and procedures.

 Space Race and the 1930s [33 Pages, 4.9mb]

 Surface Characteristics of the Moon, Mars, and Venus, March 1965 [90 Pages, 2.3MB] – Report on Surveys of Soviet-Bloc Scientific and Technical Literature.

 Ten Steps Into Space, December 1956 [214 Pages, 18.9mb]

 The New Space Race [57 Pages, 12.3mb]

The post The Space Race first appeared on The Black Vault.