Traversing the vast and varied landscapes of Siberia has always been a challenge. From the deep snow to the naked ice to the expanses of water and marshes, no one vehicle could cover them all until the A-3 Aerosledge. The A-3 was created to navigate all of these environments with ease. Designed in the post-WWII USSR by famed aeronautics engineer Andrei Tupolev, the vehicle was a propellor-driven amphibious sled that allowed access to even the most hostile, otherwise-unreachable areas.

Tupolev’s main directive was to design a vehicle that would be able to deliver mail and medical supplies to remote communities or to transport passengers to the nearest medical facility. The craft was small and light enough that it could be transported via helicopter to wherever it was needed.

The A-3 looked like a futuristic speedboat complete with gullwing doors. Its body was incredibly lightweight and watertight, featuring three separate watertight compartments that allowed the craft to stay afloat even if one of the chambers became flooded. A slightly upturned bow and clever design meant that as the A-3’s speed increased, it would slightly hover above snow or water. This was a particularly helpful feature when it came to zipping around on light, fluffy snow that would have slowed down any other power sled.

Inside, the passenger compartment could carry up to a maximum of 1,443 pounds over ice and 661 pounds traveling over water. There was enough room for a driver and plenty of cargo, or a driver and four passengers when additional seating was installed.

Only around 800 A-3 Powersledges were ever manufactured, with production ceasing in the early 1980s. Only one – a 1978 model – was known to have made it to the US, after the new owner found it in Russia and had it restored to pristine working condition with the help of experts from around the world. It was sold at auction in 2007 for $187,000 and again in January 2015 for $220,000.

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Music has always had the power to transcend social and political borders, and eager listeners have always found creative ways to satisfy their need for melodic escape. But few methods were as ingenious as the one used by people in the Soviet Union who were denied the privilege of listening to Western music like jazz and rock.

Clever bootleggers began pressing their own records as early as the 1930s. The practice seemed to explode in popularity in the 1950s. However, due to material shortages and the covert nature of the pressings, bootleggers had to look for creative materials on which to store the forbidden sounds. They turned to a surprising source that was both free and readily available: discarded X-ray films fished from hospital dumpsters.

Using a special device to replicate the scarce few contraband records that made it into the USSR, records were pressed directly onto the X-rays. The music-playing grooves could only be pressed into one side of the X-rays and the sound quality was quite low – but the “bone music,” as the records came to be known, fulfilled a need for culture from other parts of the world.

The finished records were cut into crude circles with scissors, a label was affixed, and a cigarette made the central hole that would allow the records to play on a standard turntable. The results were oddly compelling. Here were two types of completely different media laid one atop the other: a picture of a broken bone, or a mass in a lung, or a cracked rib, would play the music that was so sought after in the isolated reaches of the USSR. The industry grew quickly, and the X-ray Press, or roentgenizdat, was producing millions of bone music records.

Authorities were alerted to the underground bone music industry and by 1958 the bootleg records were made illegal. They remain an important part of history, however, and some of the actual records can be found today in the sound archives of the Hungarian Radio. Photographer József Hajdú added a third layer of media to the already-complex bone records by photographing them to share the story of illegal bone music with the rest of the modern world.

The post How Used X-Rays Brought Banned US Music to the USSR first appeared on Gajitz.

The ‘Space Race’ between the US and the USSR during the 1960s can kind of be looked at as a sport. The Russians took a huge early lead, being the first to successfully launch a satellite; put an animal into space (poor Laika); and, as an almost ‘nail in the coffin,’ sent famed (and consequently doomed) cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into orbit. All the US had to offer was to launch astronaut Alan Shepard into sub-orbit; he was in the air for less than half an hour. But this massive rocket the Soviets built turned out to be their downfall.

With the successful Apollo 11 program, the US did what was needed to win what in hindsight seems like a bizarre and macabre game. The Saturn V carried Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins to the moon for the first successful moon landing. Where were the Soviets? While Neil and Buzz were sauntering around and playing golf on the moon, the USSR was doing what they love most: Being secretive. They designed and built a rocket called the N1, a shuttle slightly shorter than the Saturn V but with much, much, much more fire power…too much, it turned out. The American space program strapped five huge engines on the Saturn V; the Soviets went the other route and used an astonishing thirty engines.

Although they were much smaller, 24 of them were assembled into a ring for the first launch stage. Their logic seems similar to the kind used by the crazy uncle we all have who, during a July 4^th celebration, thinks it’s a good idea to put two or three superfluous mortars into the firing tube. The USSR executed four test launches of the gargantuan N1. All were disastrous, especially the mega-blaze of glory that was the second attempt. Subsequently scrapped, the program was denied until 1989, as it was seen as a huge embarrassment.

(via Jalopnik)

The post Space Race or Insanity? Soviet Union’s Doomed Rockets first appeared on Gajitz.