Gizmodo Australia » soviet

Steampunk Soviet Gas Mask Looks Like That Nazi From Hellboy 1

Jason Chen — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:00:00 +0000

This specially-created one-off steampunk gas mask was made from leather, brass, and a Soviet-era gas mask. What’s special about this isn’t that it looks incredibly creepy and incredibly cool, it’s that it looks kinda similar to that Nazi villain from the first Hellboy movie. Maybe it’s just us and our excitement for Hellboy II that we’re even thinking of buying this on eBay for US$650 to use in our “LARPing”. Yeah, that’s the ticket. [ebay via Livejournal via Steampunk Workshop via Wired]

Update: It also looks like Psycho Mantis from Metal Gear Solid.

Soviet T-72 Tank vs Incrudo USB Flash Drive

Jesus Diaz — Thu, 15 May 2008 14:00:00 +0000

Incrudo makes water-proof, shock-proof, scratch-proof, and apparently T-72B tank-proof USB flash drives out of pure titanium. And to prove it, the crazy Ivans pitted the key—which also has a special metal-ceramics composite on the front and back panels, as well as a real ruby that illuminates from the inside—against the legendary tank. Sure, the test is on the mud, but that’s 49.1 tonnes of tank. A Soviet tank. If there’s something cooler than that, I don’t know what is. [Incrudo]

Soviet Dog Cooked in Space Only Got this Lousy Statue

Gizmodo US Edition — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 22:00:00 +0000

It’s the stuff of canine legends. Fifty years ago Laika the dog went from stray zero to hero when the Soviet Union strapped her to Sputnik 2 and launched it into the cold reaches of outer space. The trailblazing pooch, who had a statue to her unveiled in Russia last week, proved that living things could survive in space. Her trip also paved the way for more ambitious human-related endeavours, like John’s Glenn’s historic orbit, the Apollo 11 moon landing and Tom Hanks’ career. Laika eventually died an excruciating death from overheating when life support failed a few hours after launch, for which Russia recognised her with a monument. All that sacrifice, and just a statue?

Laika’s statue resides outside the Moscow military research facility where her flight team prepared the original space mission in 1957. Reuters reports the monument features the hot dog standing atop a rocket.

Like all dogs used in the Soviet space program Laika was a stray. Strays were selected because Soviet doctors apparently believed the mean streets of Moscow were similar to conditions experienced in space. Small dogs were selected due to the size constraints of the Sputnik 2 capsule, but at least Laika got to travel in style with this custom space suit-complete with euthanasia needle and feeding trough!

“Laika was quiet and charming,” Dr. Vladimir Yazdovsky wrote in his book about Soviet space medicine. He even took the dog home to play with his children. “I wanted to do something nice for her: She had so little time left to live,” he said. After fetch with the kids, Yazdovsky launched Laika into space, attached to a fuel-filled tin can with no parachute, and into history. We should all be so lucky. [Images: Telstar Logistics and Reuters]

Buran Space Shuttle Floats Along the Rhine

Haroon Malik — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 01:30:00 +0000

The Buran space shuttle was once the apple of the Soviet space fleet’s eye. Unfortunately, it has now been reduced to floating peacefully down the river Rhine, where it will eventually come to rest at the Technik Museum Speyer in Mannheim, Germany. The great shuttle took to the skies only once during an unmanned test flight, but two decades later, the modern relic has gone the way of a crushed Buzz Lightyear—it’s realised it can’t fly, but at least it can put on one hell of an exhibition. Good on you, Buran. The images of the final float look stunning, and the video of the event, which is set against some seriously melancholic music, makes the whole event look like a sad and dignified funeral procession. Check out the pictures in the gallery below, then jump in to see the clip. Warning: have your hankies ready.

[Siberian Light]

Brilliant Casemod Takes Us Back to the USSR, 1961

Charlie White — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 16:12:18 +0000

To hell with all this newfangled modern-looking stuff like that iMac—let’s go back to the heyday of the Soviet Union, circa 1961 when the Reds were making these Rekord TV sets. Enterprising case modders took out the guts of one of those old idiot boxes and inserted a completely current Athlon-packing Windows PC inside. We’re digging that gorgeous wood finish on the outside, and its lusciously retro implications.Just like the iMac, this is an all-in-one computer, and all you have to do is add mouse and keyboard and you’re off and running. Design details have been faithfully executed throughout, and there are even motion-sensitive LEDs that flicker when you move the thing around. Check out those old-timey toggle switches on the side, too. Just to find an old box like this must have been a difficult task; you don’t know how lucky you are, boys. It’s a masterpiece, yet another reason to make us glad the Reds didn’t decide to push the button down.

AMD Athlon(tm) 64×2 Dual Core Processor3800+

Kingston 1024MB RAM

400GB HDD

NVIDIA GeForce 6100nForce

Creative Audigy Soundblaster 7.1

Behold TV M6

Samsung DualHinge 17″ TFT LCD monitor

LiteON DVDRW

wireless keyboard&mouse

[DarkRoastedBlend via Technobob]

Soviet Outpost In Kazakhstan Slated To Be America’s Spaceport For Four Years Or More

Wilson Rothman — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 19:00:00 +0000

Baikonur is the former Soviet spaceport that put Yuri Gagarin into space and—despite regime change and an uncomfortable proximity to Borat—is still active. This year it provided the launch pad for American billionaire Charles Simonyi and the first Malaysian cosmonaut, Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor. According to the AP, once the US space shuttle program ends in 2010, we’re going to run all of our missions through the former enemy territory, a town that hasn’t changed a whole lot since 1961. Here’s a gallery of the quirky spacetown, plus some more wacky fun facts:• The town of 70,000 suffers extra-hot summers and freezing winters, constantly covered in dust from the surrounding hundreds of miles of scrubland, the weather extremes due to poorly planned Soviet irrigation projects of the early 20th century.

• In 1991, the Soviet collapse stranded Baikonur in the newly independent country of Kazakhstan. A local says: “We did not know what country we belonged to, but we kept on launching rockets.” Russia now “rents” the cosmodrome from the Kazakhs for $105 million a year.

• Thanks to increased Russian oil money, Baikonur has seen new investment. It’s a “magnet” for job-seekers, and there’s a socialist system in place, with free healthcare and housing reserved for employees of the city or launch complex.

• Launch crews are a paragon of efficiency and ability, even today, to the amazement of outsiders. Mark Bowman, deputy director of the NASA Human Space Flight Program at Baikonur, told AP: “Rain or shine or sleet or snow don’t matter.”

We’ll see you in Baikonur! (At least, we will when we score a spare $25 million for some good old-fashioned space tourism.) [AP]

Photo credits: Wikipedia, Space-Travellers.com, GlobalSecurity.org, Leuband.de, FAS, WDR 2, Space.Huerz.ch, US Centennial of Flight Commission

Craziest, Weirdest, Coolest Soviet Airplanes Ever

Seamus Byrne — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 13:40:19 +0000

If you didn’t get enough with the Typhoon closing on the Hercules, check this Sukhoi SU-27UB whizzing by just 4 feet above the runway. However, this isn’t the most impressive thing flying at the Russian 2007 Air Show. Check out some of the strangest and coolest airplanes you will ever see, after the jump.This is the forward-swept wing Sukhoi SU-47 Bekrut, taking off from Zhukovsky Airport, where they celebrate the show. This airport is perfect for the event because it is located next to Lake Galendzhik. As you will see in the gallery, Russian designers have a special love for hydroplanes.

[Jetphotos and Airliners]

Soviet Arcade Machines Fully Explain Russians’ Vodka Addiction

Seamus Byrne — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 11:22:28 +0000

While Russian President, former KGB agent and failed comedian Vladimir Putin polishes his ICBMs, a group of friends at Moscow State Technical University has decided to do the same with a whole bunch of videogame machines from the Soviet Era. And like the USSR’s old missiles, these primitive Japanese arcade crude knockoffs look to be just as fun. I know this is all about nostalgia but someone should tell them that some things are better left in the graveyard. At least the ICBMs. – Jesus Diaz

Soviet-Era Arcade Games Crawl Out of Their Cold War Graves [Wired]