The wonderful book "Rise and Kill First" is a history of Israeli assassinations, with their policy of going after the "head of the snake". There are some interesting sections on how Israel used assassination to inhibit missile programs in the Middle East, including Egypt. Its a pretty easy read despite being long.
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
#52If 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
That's the one, there seem to be multiple copies around, e.g. this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfBcCLSQP-c
I remain astounded that (a) all this footage actually exists and (b) someone made an entire documentary about it. I'd never heard of this stuff until I talked to someone who claimed to have helped finance the project at the time.
Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace
#53Use Google Translate or llm to translate the content in this url https://www.intelligence.org.il/?module=articles&item_id=16&...
I've been enjoying the Firefox translate, but for some reason sometimes it doesn't show the option to engage it, and I have to fall back to running things through duck.ai Too shy to file a formal bug or let the cloud know what I'm OSINTing :-)
>for some reason sometimes it doesn't show the option to engage it
The language detection definitely isn't 100%.
On desktop there's always "Translate page" in the hamburger menu. On Android it's in the 3 dot menu, hidden behind "More".
Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably the conspiracy theory about scientists dying suspiciously, that’s just pure statistical noise
Well is it suspicious or noise? Do you have a link?
This is a decent place to start:
“FBI looks into dead or missing scientists tied to NASA, Blue Origin, SpaceX” (fortune.com)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47858246
233 points | 3 months ago | 170 comments
Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace
#55If 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.
Both cases remind me of Project Harp ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP ). After the project was shut down by the US and Canada, the engineer behind it (Gerald Bull) decided to work for Saddam Hussein to build a "Babylon Cannon" which then caused Mossad to 'intervene' in 1990: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Bull I wonder how many similar but unknown cases there are involving former Soviet scientists a…
And Kurt Tank, father of the FW190 among other things, built the Pulqui for Argentina until it was nixed by a combination of the fall of Perón and heavy US pressure to make sure Argentina never developed a domestic fighter industry, after which he went to India and create the Marut. He could have been building them for the UK but they turned down one of the world's foremost aircraft designers because they couldn't see a need for him.
Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
"caused" it's all human decisions. especially at institutional level, there's no causing others to act
[flagged]
A more honest phrasing: “Bull was assassinated by Mossad to stop his work.”
> action by Bull that 'caused' a reaction by Mossad"
I object to the total abdication of responsibility for the “reaction”.
Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
The definition has shifted towards socioeconomic descriptor, nobody uses the old definition because it's no longer WW2
> nobody uses the old definition because it's no longer WW2
These are Cold War terms (post WW2). And for the Cold War era it makes sense to use the original meaning.
IMHO the term "3rd world country" shouldn't be used in the first place when talking about the time after the early 1990s though. It's misleading and the "modern" meaning comes with a hefty whiff of implied racism/colonialism.
Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Kind of sad that they didn’t work out. I really wish German industry had a little more willpower to get things done instead of giving up so easily. That’s one strength of the US. They just keep marching forward and have enough investors that are willing to take the risk.
Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace
#59[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.
Yes, the Kinzhal is a second stage of Iskander launched from a special Mig-31.
It is not necessarily a bad weapon but the key innovation was to save money by using the Mig as reusable first stage. Pretending it is in the same class as true hypersonic glide vehicles was just PR.
Russia is now giving up on it because it didn't work out for some reason, maybe the Migs are more expensive to operate than planned or the weapon has no element if surprise be if the special Mig starts you know the missiles are coming?
Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
« 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…
> As to your definition of what "third world" meant, that's not how I remember it And the reading you adopted is a simplified superstition. The expression 'Tiers Monde' was coined by academician Alfred Sauvy in an article on l'Observateur (14 August 1952), to express that the countries not directly aligned to the "two blocks" are akin to the social "third state" as a worldwide class that will demand a better position…
« the countries not directly aligned to the "two blocks" are akin to the social "third state" as a worldwide class » — That's the economic (rather than political) definition right there in 1952. Les pays sous-développés … et aussi exploités … le Tiers État.