Yugoslavian space program

A rather interesting documentary will come up in 2013

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfJiNPZ38kY

Hmmm ... the author isn't called somehow Pavelsky Corutev or something like this ?

Sorry if I'm sarcastic ( again ) - nothing personal but this sounds ... you know ... as a typical hype ...

I am not arguing with the "Yugoslavian" part of space race story, but I consider that without the German scientists represented by Wernher von Braun the American space program could not exist.
Yugoslavia may had some impressive know-how, but you need huge resources for this. The United States spent 100 billion (100,000,000,000) dollars for the space program in 1960-1970. That was for the dollar value as it was back then. Convert to today's dollar, and it is scary...
To offer the whole picture, decades later Japan achieved impressive results with their space program with much lower cost, because the space program in Japan is followed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and not by the government. When a corporation takes care of it, it can be more efficient than government spending.

Also, interesting name for a Yugoslavian: Herman Potocnik - Noordung. It reminds me of the German inhabitants forced to leave Yugoslavia after war.

This post has been edited by Florin on January 12, 2012 07:30 pm

I won't argue if it's true or not..i'll probably watch the docu when it comes out if i don't forget about it..but you got to give props for the way the base looked

This is filmed in the 80's

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X455wiHCCac

If the story discovered by you is true, if there were was a real transfer of technology in the 1960's, it had to be secret (as it is mentioned). Following this logic, obviously a documentary created in 1980's will show that underground base used for its purpose as of 1980's: hideout for airplanes and missiles.
It is possible that in the early 1960's the same tunnels and rooms to have a different usage.

Because in the '90s I was very interested in the Yugoslav conflict and gather lots of information about the combat forces, by 1996-97 I received from a serb colleague a real monography about the yougoslav military in 1990! In this monography the Bihac-Zeljava underground facility was called "Object Jasen" and shelter the 51. Air Control Battalion with AN/TPS-70 and S-600 radar stations, the 117. Fighter Regiment with three squadrons of MiG-21bis and recce MiG-21RF, some auxiliary subunits -one aircraft technical battalion, one security battalion and two security companies, one aircraft handling company, one light air defense artillery&missile regiment, a.o. smaller units. The large underground air base (called the 200 Air Base Bihac-Zeljava) had space for up to 80 MiG-21 fighters!

I noticed that the information posted by me are found in much more detail here:
http://www.zeljava.com/eng/index.html or, more common: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BDeljava_Air_Base

An this is how the base looks these days :

http://www.motocikli.com/forum/index.php/topic,4434.0.html

Good to use it for the documentary "Life after people".