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Your best bet is Korolev's biography by journalist Golovanov: "Korolev: Facts and Myths" published in 1994. He personally knew many people in soviet space program including Korolev himself and managed to collect many personal stories and eyewitness accounts. Book includes many unique...

We can see Putin's preferences just by watching Russian spending patterns. Clearly from Putin's point of view space is something that are "nice to have around if we have spare cash". After Putin's (mostly failed) adventure in Ukraine all funding was cut around all industries except military...

In a sense. From biography, memoirs and movies I got impression that Korolev was harsher version of Elon Musk. Guy that gets things done. Someone who could inspire others to work crazy hours. Someone not scared to pick up fights to get things done, to tongue-lash high ranking officials for poor...

Mostly cultural reasons. In case of asians, rapid rise of Japan by copying West (twice, before and after WWII) left lasting impression on Pacific rim residents (and for them Japan ARE superpower. Any smallest sign of possible rebirth of Japanese militarism, for example politician visiting...

If you think stealing and bribing is some new phenomena in Russia, then you should read comedy Ревизор (Auditor) by famous Russian writer Gogol (written in 1836). Besides good comedy you may find that some elements of national culture may be amazingly resilient and can survive two world wars...

Few months ago I accidentally found why Artemis Accords and why Russia (and Rogozin) are so angry about them (from very angry article in Russian media). United Nations have often forgotten organization called "United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA)". Most members are non-space...

This entire discussion is running in circles. Law mentioned in article are explicitly aimed at users in border regions of Russia. Starlink will need to get appropriate licenses and frequencies from Russian authorities to legally operate in Russia as several comments noted. But there is also...

Nope. Buran project started as carbon copy of Space Shuttle but final design was result of political compromises. This site contains tons of documents about Buran project, including early project history. In short: In 1974 political leadership decided that N-1 lunar rocket is not salvageable...

Nope. 1. Wernher von Braun indeed intentionally defected (together with few hundred other engineers). In secret meeting decision was made to surrender specifically to americans. Evacuation location was chosen with explicit purpose to meet american army. And finally in one of most bizarre...

Modest cultural explanation. This movie was bit rebellious and politically 'risky' in its time. Most of comedy scenes are based on our main hero (diehard communist from 'mainland' Russia) being very culturally unaware about vastly culturally different Central Asia cultures. For example crating...