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April 26, 2009
Space Hackers!
There's a fascinating article by Kris Hollington over on ForteanTimes called Lost in Space, which tells the story of Achille and Giovanbattista Judica-Cordiglia, two Italian radio geeks, who with home-made equipment, listened in on the secret Soviet and American space programs during the early 1960's. Most shocking is the number of lost cosmonauts they claim to have recorded... up to nine dead men and women lost during re-entry, or that never returned to earth.
There are those who believe that somewhere in the vast blackness of space, about nine billion miles from the Sun, the first human is about to cross the boundary of our Solar System into interstellar space. His body, perfectly preserved, is frozen at –270 degrees C (–454ºF); his tiny capsule has been silently sailing away from the Earth at 18,000 mph (29,000km/h) for the last 45 years. He is the original lost cosmonaut, whose rocket went up and, instead of coming back down, just kept on going.
It's disturbing stuff, but the real story here is of the brothers and their exploits to crack into the most top secret transmissions of the day and to reveal the truth about these missions. Their adventures are the kind of thing you'd love to see a movie of, and you are in luck, there's a documentary on the brothers called Space Hackers out there. You can google around to find out where to get it.
Posted by Snaggy at April 26, 2009 07:45 AM