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Soviet Union sold titanium to US believing they needed it for pizza ovens

theaviationgeekclub.com

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Re: Soviet Union sold titanium to US believing they needed it for pizza ovens

#121

Post by rl3 »

nwallin wrote: post #42

Does any know any more details about this? It's a fun tidbit that gets a link/article on social media every few weeks, but it's never anything more than a tidbit. "The US needed titanium for the SR-71. The only supplier of titanium was the Soviet Union. So the US bought it from the Soviet Union through a shell corporation." But that's it. It's those 3 facts and only those three facts expressed in anywhere between one…

>They rarely mention the name of the shell company. (Red Sea something?) ...

I'm curious if you have any citations for that. If I google it, your guess is the top result.

In The Rock (1996), the Red Sea Trading Company is the name of a shell corporation used to launder proceeds from illegal arms sales. Wonder if the writers put it in there as some kind of nod.

Re: Soviet Union sold titanium to US believing they needed it for pizza ovens

#122

Post by diordiderot »

jraby3 wrote: post #90
sublinear wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they secretly sell drugs to America to make them useless and make society unstable That is quite a non sequitur. Who is being forced to take drugs or listen to extremist propaganda? Those are deliberate choices made by people with low impulse control, and China has nothing to do with that. The instability of American culture is currently seen as an intrinsic virtue. China is not causing any change. They're just app…

There’s a pretty strong connection to them supplying fentanyl to the US through Vancouver. https://www.jordanharbinger.com/sam-cooper-how-the-west-was-...

Hell the police import it themselves

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/30/us/california-police-unio...

Re: Soviet Union sold titanium to US believing they needed it for pizza ovens

#123

Post by camillomiller »

anoy8888 wrote: post #59
nwallin wrote: post #42

Does any know any more details about this? It's a fun tidbit that gets a link/article on social media every few weeks, but it's never anything more than a tidbit. "The US needed titanium for the SR-71. The only supplier of titanium was the Soviet Union. So the US bought it from the Soviet Union through a shell corporation." But that's it. It's those 3 facts and only those three facts expressed in anywhere between one…

That is what China is doing to US now . Decades from now , Chinese will joke about how they get chips and other secret tech from shell companies in us. They will also joke about how they secretly sell drugs to America to make them useless and make society unstable.

oh, so the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma are Chinese? The more you know…

Re: Soviet Union sold titanium to US believing they needed it for pizza ovens

#124

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Tool_of_Society wrote: post #105
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could a Foxbat shoot down an SR-71? The latter is like 0.6 Mach faster. The former was built out of steel, had an underpowered radar, couldn’t climb as high as a Blackbird and carried AA-6’s, which would have to lock and hit their target before the solid motors ran out [1]. To my knowledge the MiG-25’s claim to fame is shooting down an F-15 in the Gulf War. In any case, it’s clearly been worth it. The B-2, B-21 and R…

The Mig top speeds quoted always involve a plane that had no ordinance and was essentially empty. Even then the plane couldn't handle mach 2.83 for longer than 5 or so minutes due to heat generated by air friction damaging both the engines and the air-frame. Meanwhile the SR-71's top sustainable speed was mach +3. So basically a mig25 would have to be in the perfect spot and ready to have a chance at shooting down a…

> only incident I'm aware of was the "ambush" in Samurra

I was mistaken. The MiG-25 was entirely outclassed by the USAF.

Re: Soviet Union sold titanium to US believing they needed it for pizza ovens

#125

Post by zod-was-right »

sublinear wrote: post #87
anoy8888 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is what China is doing to US now . Decades from now , Chinese will joke about how they get chips and other secret tech from shell companies in us. They will also joke about how they secretly sell drugs to America to make them useless and make society unstable.

> they secretly sell drugs to America to make them useless and make society unstable That is quite a non sequitur. Who is being forced to take drugs or listen to extremist propaganda? Those are deliberate choices made by people with low impulse control, and China has nothing to do with that. The instability of American culture is currently seen as an intrinsic virtue. China is not causing any change. They're just app…

> Those are deliberate choices made by people with low impulse control

... I hope you're not in charge of anyone's life

Re: Soviet Union sold titanium to US believing they needed it for pizza ovens

#127

Post by dclowd9901 »

chii wrote: post #84
mcny wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Chinese will joke about how they get chips and other secret tech from shell companies in us. They will also joke about how they secretly sell drugs to America to make them useless and make society unstable. > If they’re useless, how are they making chips and secret tech? My reading is they are trying to make us useless but we are not there yet? I assume it takes time, right? In any case, not like the west can comp…

> not like the west can complain after what we did in the opium wars? the west isn't one entity. Plus two wrongs don't make a right. Just because in the past, there has been atrocities committed, doesn't mean there's justification to do so now.

“Two wrongs don’t make a right” is a moral play. There are definitely cases in history where wrongs made rights, two or more.

Some sort of moral balance has to be achieved before two forces can move forward. It will feel reasonable to both sides when it happens.

Re: Soviet Union sold titanium to US believing they needed it for pizza ovens

#128

Post by jillesvangurp »

8note wrote: post #7

> After all, they fraudulently possibly told their comrades that the United States was a lazy country that probably couldn’t even cook for itself. They need it to go out to buy pizza… This is a weird dig at the soviets, who were probs just happy to to find some customers to justify having already dug up all the ore. The fraudster seem to be the Americans in this case?

Don't exclude corruption as a motive here. Pizza ovens sounds just about like a good enough excuse some corrupt Russian official would be able to use with a straight face while making a nice profit selling titanium.

Re: Soviet Union sold titanium to US believing they needed it for pizza ovens

#129

Post by blackoil »

anoy8888 wrote: post #59
nwallin wrote: post #42

Does any know any more details about this? It's a fun tidbit that gets a link/article on social media every few weeks, but it's never anything more than a tidbit. "The US needed titanium for the SR-71. The only supplier of titanium was the Soviet Union. So the US bought it from the Soviet Union through a shell corporation." But that's it. It's those 3 facts and only those three facts expressed in anywhere between one…

That is what China is doing to US now . Decades from now , Chinese will joke about how they get chips and other secret tech from shell companies in us. They will also joke about how they secretly sell drugs to America to make them useless and make society unstable.

US and US/British army have a weird addiction for drug. China is only a very recent player. Golden Triangle and Golden Crescent were developed by US/British armies and FBI as a drug powerhouse.

Re: Soviet Union sold titanium to US believing they needed it for pizza ovens

#130

Post by thriftwy »

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #101

They were also quite good at processing Titanium, for example the monument to Yuri Gagarin in Moscow is made out of a Titanium alloy (the monument looks like superman, if you ask me). They had to melt and cast titanium ingots in a vacuum oven, then assemble the components into the statue. This technique wasn't repeated very often, as far as i know. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_to_Yuri_Gagarin Also see the R…

I believe I had a Soviet stove in my early childhood whose burners were made out of titanium, at least they were super light like made from plastic.
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