Soviet Union sold titanium to US believing they needed it for pizza ovens
Does any know any more details about this? It's a fun tidbit that gets a link/article on social media every few weeks, but it's never anything more than a tidbit. "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." But that's it. It's those 3 facts and only those three facts expressed in anywhere between one sentence and 10 paragraphs.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't talk about whether alternatives were considered.I just feel like there's probably an interesting story there, but we never hear it, just the tidbit that can fit in the headline.