Editing Soviet space program (section)

==Program secrecy==
[[File:The Soviet Union 1964 CPA 3089A souvenir sheet (Soviet Conquest of Space. 1st satellite, 1st pennant on the Moon, 1st view of the Moon far side, 1st man in space, 1st group in space, 1st woman in space) large resolution.jpg|thumb|350px|''Communists pave the way to the stars''. The Soviet [[miniature sheet]] of 1964 displaying six historical firsts of the Soviet space program.]]

The Soviet space program had withheld information on its projects predating the success of [[Sputnik]], the world's first artificial satellite. In fact, when the Sputnik project was first approved, one of the most immediate courses of action the [[Politburo]] took was to consider what to announce to the world regarding their event.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://prezi.com/vibdzluxed9y/the-soviet-space-program |title=The Soviet Space Program by Eric Mariscal |publisher=Prezi.com |access-date=2022-03-08}}</ref>

The [[Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union]] (TASS) established precedents for all official announcements on the Soviet space program.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://tass.com/history | title=TASS history }}</ref> The information eventually released did not offer details on who built and launched the satellite or why it was launched. The public release revealed, "there is an abundance of arcane scientific and technical data... as if to overwhelm the reader with mathematics in the absence of even a picture of the object".<ref name="University of Pittsburgh Press, Siddiqi & Andrews, 2011" /> What remains of the release is the pride for Soviet [[cosmonautics]] and the vague hinting of future possibilities then available after [[Sputnik]]'s success.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/postwarera/1950s-america/a/the-start-of-the-space-race |title=The start of the Space Race (article) |publisher=Khan Academy |date=1958-10-01 |access-date=2022-03-08}}</ref>

The Soviet space program's use of secrecy served as both a tool to prevent the leaking of classified information between countries and also to create a mysterious barrier between the space program and the Soviet populace. The program's nature embodied ambiguous messages concerning its goals, successes, and values. Launchings were not announced until they took place. [[Cosmonaut]] names were not released until they flew. Mission details were sparse. Outside observers did not know the size or shape of their rockets or cabins or most of their spaceships, except for the first Sputniks, lunar probes and Venus probe.<ref name="ebooks.ohiolink.edu">{{Cite web|url=http://ebooks.ohiolink.edu/xtf-ebc/view?docId=tei/sv2/9781461430520/9781461430520.xml&query=&brand=default|title=OhioLINK Institution Selection |website=Ebooks.ohiolink.edu|access-date=2016-01-19}}</ref>

[[File:mirdream sts76.jpg|thumb|250px|left|''[[Mir]]'' in 1996 as seen from {{OV|104}} during [[STS-76]]]]

However, the military influence over the Soviet space program may be the best explanation for this secrecy. The [[OKB-1]] was subordinated under the [[Ministry of General Machine-Building]],<ref name="University of Pittsburgh Press, Siddiqi & Andrews, 2011" /> tasked with the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles, and continued to give its assets random identifiers into the 1960s: "For example, the [[Vostok (spacecraft)|Vostok]] spacecraft was referred to as 'object IIF63' while its launch rocket was 'object 8K72K'".<ref name="University of Pittsburgh Press, Siddiqi & Andrews, 2011" /> Soviet defense factories had been assigned numbers rather than names since 1927. Even these internal codes were obfuscated: in public, employees used a separate code, a set of special post-office numbers, to refer to the factories, institutes, and departments.

The program's public pronouncements were uniformly positive: as far as the people knew, the Soviet space program had never experienced failure. According to historian James Andrews, "With almost no exceptions, coverage of Soviet space exploits, especially in the case of human space missions, omitted reports of failure or trouble".<ref name="University of Pittsburgh Press, Siddiqi & Andrews, 2011" />

According to Dominic Phelan in the book ''Cold War Space Sleuths'', "The [[USSR]] was famously described by [[Winston Churchill]] as 'a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma' and nothing signified this more than the search for the truth behind its space program during the Cold War. Although the [[Space Race]] was literally played out above our heads, it was often obscured by a figurative 'space curtain' that took much effort to see through."<ref name="ebooks.ohiolink.edu"/><ref>{{Cite web|author=Dominic Phelan |url=https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/bfm%3A978-1-4614-3052-0%2F1.pdf |title=Cold War Space Sleuths |website=springer.com | publisher = Praxis Publishing | date=2013 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220513182442/https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/bfm:978-1-4614-3052-0/1.pdf?error=cookies_not_supported&code=415934f9-1e4a-4c5a-9cc3-8396837c047e  | archive-date=2022-05-13  | access-date=2022-05-13}}</ref>