The Space Race, the Cold War, and the Moon Landing all have an origin story connected to a small, obscure silver iron mining operation in the mountains of Lower Saxony in Germany – and it’s such a complex, unbelievable tale that it exposes our most dangerous intersections of science and morality.

14 tons of buried paper determined the fate of the world and kicked off humanity’s exploration of space.

We already know the end of the story: we know about Sputnik and Apollo 11, we know about Werner von Braun, and we know about Operation Paperclip. But pulling the threads of NASA and the Soviet Union’s Vostok program unravels an unknown World War II race between trucks and time, a struggle of secrets and survival, and a twistfilled tale of man, mind, and morality.

What you need to know is that story’s beginning – and if you don’t know it already, that’s because they never told you.

#spacerace #coldwar #science #history