Curated playlist

Soviet inventions

Salyut 1The first crew sent to Salyut 1 never got inside the space station. Their Soyuz 10 docking seal failed in April 1971.
SatelliteOne Soviet sphere launched in 1957 has become thousands of satellites. As of June 28, 2025, 12,952 orbit Earth.
Sputnik 1Most people who watched Sputnik 1 cross the sky actually saw its rocket. The satellite itself was barely visible.
Lander (spacecraft)Luna 9 became the first spacecraft to softly land on the Moon in 1966. Every earlier probe there had crashed on purpose.
R-7 SemyorkaThe Soviet R-7 Semyorka missile was nearly useless as a weapon. It took twenty hours to prepare for launch.
Sputnik 2Sputnik 2 carried a living dog into orbit in 1957. Laika, a small part-Samoyed terrier, had no recovery plan.
Fast-neutron reactorThe fast-neutron reactor began in 1946 at Los Alamos National Laboratory, with a machine called Clementine. It ran on plutonium metal fuel and produced only 25 kilowatts of heat. That was enough for research, especially as a source of fast…
LaserOn May 16, 1960, Theodore Maiman fired the first laser, measuring its power by whether it could burn a razor blade.
Space stationOn May 30, 2023, seventeen people were living in space at once. That was a first, split between two stations.
Vostok 1Yuri Gagarin ejected from Vostok 1 before landing, but the Soviet Union said otherwise until 1971.
Mafia (party game)Mafia, also called Werewolf, was created in 1986 by Dmitry Davidoff, a psychology student at Moscow State University. It pits a small group of players who know exactly who their allies are against a larger group who know nothing at all.…
Soyuz (rocket family)The Soyuz rocket family descends from the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile.
TetrisTetris holds a strange record among video games. It has appeared on at least 70 platforms, more than any other game. Guinness World Records also counts roughly 220 official versions, each with its own music and images. The puzzle was…