seems legit

plus: your tech timeline is off ONE CRACKED FACT | [View in Browser]( [logo]( [The Elevator That Was So Perfect, They Put The Inventor In Prison]( By: [RM Avatar] [Ryan Menezes]( • November 29, 2021 [11292021](www.cracked.com/article_31866_the-elevator-that-was-so-perfect-they-put-the-inventor-in-prison.html?newsletter-cat=science?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=29112021) During World War I, while the other Russian soldiers were thinking about not dying, Aleksandr Shargei was doodling plans for going to the Moon. He died before space travel became a reality (he fought again in World War II, and didn't make it out), but the equations he wrote were sound. Decades after his death, and a couple years after we reached the Moon, Neil Armstrong made a pilgrimage to Shargei's house and grabbed some soil as a souvenir. The route that Shargei planned out, and that NASA ended up using, is known as Kondratyuk's loop. That's because when World War I wound down, Russia had a revolution, and Shargei changed his name to Yuri Kondratyuk to avoid being arrested as an enemy of the people. He figured the Soviets would target him because he'd been an important guy under the Tsar. Changing his name kept the Reds off him for a while, but they did end up arresting him, for doing absolutely nothing wrong. The evidence against Kondratyuk had to do with a massive grain elevator he'd built in his southern town. Metal was scarce, and he'd managed to build this 13,000 ton structure entirely out of wood and without a single nail. The elevator was nicknamed the Mastodon (it looked kind of like a mastodon, with a long trunk), and it was an engineering marvel. In 1930, the government put him on trial, saying that if he made it without any nails, he wanted it to collapse. Possibly, no one actually believed Kondratyuk was a saboteur. The Soviets arrested people all the time for made-up reasons and presented ludicrous evidence. Kondratyuk's charges stuck, and they sent Kondratyuk to a gulag. Once he was out, he went back to working on construction that most people considered impossible. He put together a plan for a wind turbine that everyone said was so huge, it made no sense at all. Then, after he died, Russia used this plan to build Moscow's Ostankino Tower—which, even today, is taller than any other freestanding structure in all of Europe. For more daring inventions, check out: - [Termites Already Have a Hydrogen Economy]( - [The First Wireless Telephone Communication Happened Before Most People Had Wired Phones]( - [8 Online Fads You Didn't Know Were Invented Decades Ago]( [Daily Digest]( [Mr. Bean And Steven Wright Won An Academy Award In The 80s]( [By Charlie Bevins / November 29th, 2021]( [Cracked VS: T. rex vs. SWAT Team]( [By Andres Diplotti / November 29th, 2021]( [NFTs Are So, So Dumb]( [By Mark Hill / November 29th, 2021]( [The Missouri Town That Had A 50 Gator Invasion]( [By Ethan Tyrrell / November 28th, 2021]( [Superheroes Have Some Weirdo Food Obsessions]( [By Cezary Jan Strusiewicz / November 28th, 2021]( [READ MORE]( [fb]( [tw]( [yt]( [flipboard]( [insta png]( [tiktok png]( [ARTICLES]( | [PICTOFACTS]( | [Videos]( Literally media Ltd. 190 West St, Suite 17B, Brooklyn NY 11222 COPYRIGHT © 2005-2021 Cracked is published by Literally media Ltd. [Unsubscribe](