Soviet Union sold titanium to US believing they needed it for pizza ovens
Does any know any more details about this? It&#x27;s a fun tidbit that gets a link&#x2F;article on social media every few weeks, but it&#x27;s <i>never</i> anything more than a tidbit. &quot;The US needed titanium for the SR-71. The only supplier of titanium was the Soviet Union. So the US bought it from the Soviet Union through a shell corporation.&quot; But that&#x27;s it. It&#x27;s those 3 facts and <i>only</i> those three facts expressed in anywhere between one sentence and 10 paragraphs.<p>They never mention that the #1 worldwide producer of titanium is Australia. They never mention that South Africa produces a lot as well. They rarely mention the name of the shell company. (Red Sea something?) They don&#x27;t talk about whether alternatives were considered.<p>I just feel like there&#x27;s probably an interesting story there, but we never hear it, just the tidbit that can fit in the headline.