He had bragged in a letter to his family that he had been part of something big. Some time in the winter of 1983, Vetrov’s espionage was uncovered. We fooled them and now use tiles in the gaps.” On another page of the analysis, the anonymous engineer noted another disparity was “probably due to their stolen technology freeze in the early ’80s.”Ī NASA source says in fact the tiles were a big problem when the Soviets launched and returned the Buran in November, agreeing they were “cooked.” Is there firm public evidence the Soviets obtained defective tiles? No, but as two officials told NBC News, the United States was handing out early versions of the tiles in the late ‘70s like they were candy. With regard to the use of ablative (or adhesive) material in gaps between tiles on some surfaces, a Johnson Spaceflight Center engineer noted, “Soviets have ablative material in their elevon gaps, just like we did. shuttle design, but buried in an August 1989 technical analysis of the similarities between the two shuttles were hints of the program’s success, particularly in the development of heat-resistant tiles that protected the shuttle as it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere. In response to an NBC News Freedom of Information Act request, NASA denied it had any documents related to any Soviet effort to steal the U.S. intelligence would match Soviet requirements supplied through Vetrov with our version of those items, ones that would not - to say the least - meet the expectations of that vast Soviet apparatus.”Ĭasey was enthusiastic, and critical materials were developed, including several shuttle-related materials based on rejected NASA designs. I proposed using the Farewell material to feed or play back the products sought by, only these would come from our own sources and would have been ‘improved,’ that is designed so that on arrival in the Soviet Union they would appear genuine but would later fail.

“I met with William Casey, Reagan’s Director of Central Intelligence, on a frosty afternoon in January 1982.

Buran shuttle rf syste