Soviet space program omitted reports of failure or trouble". Out of fear of admitting any defeat, reports of cosmonauts' missions leaned towards an exaggerated positive spin rather than factual substance. "The USSR was famously described by Winston Churchill as 'a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma' and nothing signified this more than the search for the truth behind its space program during the Cold War. Although the Space Race was literally played out above our heads, it was often obscured by a figurative 'space curtain' that took much effort to see through" says Dominic Phelan in the book "Cold War Space
The Riddle of the Sphinx (Inside No. 9) the episode's close. Shearsmith identified "The Riddle of the Sphinx" as one of his two favourite episodes of the series, along with "The Devil of Christmas". For the writers, the episode was not comedic, and they expressed awareness of the differences between episodes of "Inside No. 9" like "The Riddle of the Sphinx" and the expectations of viewers for television comedies. The pair acknowledged the particular complexity of the plot, with Pemberton saying "If you missed two sentences in a row, you'd be like 'what?' Even I was thinking how are people following this? It's insane." Pemberton had long been