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In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace

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Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace

#21

Post by flohofwoe »

vrganj wrote: post #7
pseudohadamard wrote: post #3

If you want an interesting related story that's so incredible people wouldn't believe if it was a film plot, look up Otrag. Not the Wikipedia page, that only tells a fraction of the full story. There's a documentary floating around somewhere about their work in Zaire under Mobutu before they started building ballistic missiles for Gaddafi.

This one? https://youtube.com/watch?v=EA0XfkboFIY

Funny enough the uploader has made that video unavailable in Germany (OTRAG was a German company, the first private/commercial aerospace company about 3 decades before SpaceX).

Scott Manley has a video about them, and that's also available in Germany ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed4w4Cz5ccU

PS: GP probably meant this one (this is just the trailer of a German documentary from 2018):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXDdKuRANbc

Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace

#22

Post by breppp »

xandrius wrote: post #20
goodluckchuck wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I buy a laptop from Apple, they used my money to build the next generation of laptops… which inevitably come out within a year. I wouldn’t necessarily believe Iran was deceived without more.

This comment is clearly not in good faith but one can clearly understand that the current generation is out outdated.

Not sure what's the historical validity for that one source saying it was fraudulent, but this sure reads like anachronism. As someone that tries to defend him being part of selling ballistic missiles to Iran a very short time before it turning into a theocracy.

I am not completely inclined to believe Bergman because of me personally knowing one case where he published something completely wrong, and also this doesn't align with the cooperation Israel had with pre-revolution Iran.

In any case, it's theoretically possible, I guess

Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace

#23

Post by Lumich »

flohofwoe wrote: post #19
Lumich wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

My choice of words doesn't imply that only the 3rd world had despots, that's just what you want to read into it. Back in the Cold War the 'division' of the world into power blocs was quite simple: - 1st world: countries aligned with the USA - 2nd world: countries aligned with the USSR - 3rd world: independent countries that were neither aligned with the US nor USSR E.g. in its actual meaning, 3rd world doesn't say an…

« what you want to read into it »

I wanted to provide a counter point, or rather, a more balanced and self-conscious vision. As to your definition of what "third world" meant, that's not how I remember it (but I grew up in West Germany, and the GDR may have defined terms differently). The "third world", according to the Western definition, definitely were those countries that were poor (and also perceived as primitive and culturally backwards, so the term eventually came to be seen as stigmatizing, at least with left-leaning people).

What you're referring to, the unaligned countries/states, were called "blockfreie Staaten", and they were not "promoted" in Western propaganda as featuring "despots", but still could end up being bombed (democratically), like founder state Yugoslaviya.

But it is also true that many "third world" countries joined the block-free group, so there is considerable overlap.

Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace

#24

Post by boesboes »

buran77 wrote: post #8
Lucasoato wrote: post #5

[flagged]

> hunting its top scientists [...] this discourages other scientists from following that career path I take it you mean this literally (assassinations) rather than figuratively (getting hired by the competition). > In recent years US has been hit so hard Any evidence of this? Other than the storm in a cup that was the recent news of "dead scientists" that turned out to be a nothingburger. The idea sounds very plausib…

Probably the conspiracy theory about scientists dying suspiciously, that’s just pure statistical noise

Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace

#25

Post by flohofwoe »

Lumich wrote: post #23
flohofwoe wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My choice of words doesn't imply that only the 3rd world had despots, that's just what you want to read into it. Back in the Cold War the 'division' of the world into power blocs was quite simple: - 1st world: countries aligned with the USA - 2nd world: countries aligned with the USSR - 3rd world: independent countries that were neither aligned with the US nor USSR E.g. in its actual meaning, 3rd world doesn't say an…

« what you want to read into it » I wanted to provide a counter point, or rather, a more balanced and self-conscious vision. As to your definition of what "third world" meant, that's not how I remember it (but I grew up in West Germany, and the GDR may have defined terms differently). The "third world", according to the Western definition, definitely were those countries that were poor (and also perceived as primitiv…

It's quite literally the "western definition" of Third World:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World

Do you think the Soviets would have called the US aligned countries "First World"? ;)

The more 'correct' term for that modern/popular meaning of 3rd world is 'developing countries' (or in German "Entwicklungslaender"). But tbh, I have no idea when, how and why the transition from 'politically unaligned country' to 'underdeveloped country' happened in the modern popular opinion - the Wikipedia article has some ideas though - but tbh I would never have considered Cold Ware era Cuba or Vietnam to be "3rd world countries", and after 1990 the whole idea behind those "three worlds" has lost all meaning anyway, and especially after China had entered the chat.

Yugoslavia and Albania are more interesting cases though indeed, at least Yugoslavia tried to play both sides during the cold war, while Albania started as a very close Soviet ally but then moved towards China and then eventually ending up as completely isolationist.

Also as a clear example for a '2nd world despot' look at Romania's Ceausescu, and for examples of '1st world despots' look at Spain under Franco (easy to forget that Spain was a fascist dictatorship until the 1970s), or Chile under Pinochet.

Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace

#26

Post by pipe2devnull »

metalman wrote: post #11

[flagged]

As far as I’m aware if you are talking about the Kinzhal it’s a quasi-ballistic missile not really a true hypersonic missile so it’s easy to intercept. They also claim a range of 2000km but that includes the airplane’s range.

Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace

#27

Post by phendrenad2 »

boesboes wrote: post #24
buran77 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hunting its top scientists [...] this discourages other scientists from following that career path I take it you mean this literally (assassinations) rather than figuratively (getting hired by the competition). > In recent years US has been hit so hard Any evidence of this? Other than the storm in a cup that was the recent news of "dead scientists" that turned out to be a nothingburger. The idea sounds very plausib…

Probably the conspiracy theory about scientists dying suspiciously, that’s just pure statistical noise

People are definitely overhyping it, but a missing former Air Force maj. gen is kind of unusual, and "statistical noise" is kind of a funny oxymoron.

Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace

#29

Post by Mistletoe »

boesboes wrote: post #24
buran77 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hunting its top scientists [...] this discourages other scientists from following that career path I take it you mean this literally (assassinations) rather than figuratively (getting hired by the competition). > In recent years US has been hit so hard Any evidence of this? Other than the storm in a cup that was the recent news of "dead scientists" that turned out to be a nothingburger. The idea sounds very plausib…

Probably the conspiracy theory about scientists dying suspiciously, that’s just pure statistical noise

As opposed to the real hit on science by the sleeper cell of idiocy in the White House.

Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace

#30

Post by somat »

Related? the Helwan HA-300. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helwan_HA-300

Summary: Egypt was going to develop an indigenous fighter in the 1960's based off of a mostly finished Spanish design by a post WWII otherwise unemployed Willy Messerschmitt.

I First heard of the project via a pretty good youtube documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqIpJuqvsWQ Messerschmitt's Remarkably Good Supersonic Fighter (Not A Pound For Air To Ground)

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