Many Malian officials say they believe rebels are refashioning Soviet rockets trafficked from Libya into dangerous land mines.

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He belongs to what was once the Soviet intelligentsia, and is more interested in business than rockets.

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Other primates and mice followed, and the Soviet Union a few years later joining the animal space race when nine dogs went skyward aboard rockets.

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Nazi aerospace engineers pioneered the jet engine and their early work on rockets laid the foundations for the post-war space programs of both the United States and the Soviet Union.

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If deterrence worked against a heavily-armed Soviet Union, ask sceptical Europeans, why would it not work against a roguish regime with just a handful of rockets?

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