NASA is one of the most important organizations in the United States, but there are lots of secrets that they don’t want getting out. A single tweet or statement from NASA can easily flip our understanding of the world upside down, so it makes sense that they’re cautious.

But NASA has done some pretty shady things in the past that they would rather we forget. Well documented things, too, such as working with the Soviet Union when they were the US's biggest enemy during the Cold War, working with the enemy, and more.

The motto of NASA is “For the benefit of all,” but this doesn’t seem entirely true. If it doesn’t benefit NASA—or worse, hurts them—then we might as well forget about it, as far as NASA is concerned.

Here are 18 unsettling things that NASA doesn’t want us to know.

18 Astronauts Don’t Have Life Insurance

This is pretty morbid, and it probably has to do with the high-risk situations that astronauts are always in, but until 2003, astronauts that were being sent off to far-away missions did not have life insurance from NASA.

Prior to Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong’s team actually signed autographs to their relatives so that if something happened to him, they’d have something of value to sell.

17 They Recruited Enemy Scientists (Operation Paperclip)

One dark secret that NASA would prefer to be kept in the dark took place during World War II. The United States recruited more than 1,600 Nazi scientists in institutes like NASA, in order to increase their payroll.

The code name the US used to bring in the scientists was known as Operation Paperclip, which was an operation where the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) brought in Wernher von Braun and his V-2 rocket team, and more.

16 The Repercussions Of Suffering A Fit Of Madness In Space

NASA is usually prepared for anything that could go wrong, especially in space. For astronauts who just can’t handle the pressure or otherworldliness of space travel, NASA has formal procedures which are pretty barbaric.

If an astronaut suffers a fit of madness, companions must immobilize his arms and feet with tape, then inject him with a tranquilizer, to make sure no harm comes to anyone else on board.

15 Astronauts Drink Their Urine

This isn’t just an urban legend. Even though it seems very unhygienic, that really isn’t what’s going on here. NASA has developed a process of recycling urine and converting it into drinkable water at space stations.

The Russians were known to refuse to drink this recycled water, but the Americans had no problem drinking the recycled urine of their former adversaries during the Cold War.

14 The Mysteries Of Apollo 11

On July 20, 1969, the USA made history by landing the first astronauts on the moon, thus winning the space race with the Soviets. Of course, there have been plenty of conspiracy theories that it was all staged.

It doesn’t help that the video that showed Apollo 11 landing on the moon disappeared without a trace. And with all that being said, the Soviets were actually the first ones to send a satellite to the moon.

13 Damaging Precious Moon Stones

This might sound innocuous, but it’s pretty heavy-duty. Thad Roberts was a scientist that NASA wants forgotten, because he’s now spending eight years in prison for stealing 600 pounds of lunar rocks from the space agency, and then proceeding to have intercourse on top of the precious samples with his girlfriend.

The bodily fluids ruined the samples, which were valued at 21 million dollars!

12 Cooperating With The Soviet Union

Even though the space race was huge news during the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union actually cooperated on some things. There was overt hostility and mistrust between the two nations between 1957 and 1991.

But the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, conducted in 1975, was the first joint US-Soviet space flight, as a symbol of détente—the easing of strained relations—that the nations were pursuing at the time.

11 Warp Drive

NASA has secretly been working on “warp drive” technology for years. It’s not just something you see in Star Trek and Star Wars and the like—the science fiction idea could become possible in the near future.

In 2015, it came to light on a forum that NASA had found a way of accelerating beyond the speed of light. This was when the EM drive team shot lasers through a resonance chamber that traveled over 300 million meters a second. The team working on it doesn’t know how it happened.

10 Life On Mars

This seems highly speculative, but in 2014, a woman said that she had worked on the Viking Mars Rover project in 1979, and while working on the telemetry, two humanoid figures wearing thin protective space suits approached her.

After going to tell someone, she came back and the room was locked and it was covered up. NASA never commented about the finding, so it’s best to take this one with a grain of salt.

9 The X-37B Secret Space Shuttle

This doesn’t involve NASA, specifically, but it’s still in their wheelhouse. The Air Force has had a secret space shuttle in orbit for two years, but no one has an idea what it is for and what it’s been doing. The X-37B has done missions since 2010, after it was developed in 998 and passed on to DARPA.

It was said it was used for reconnaissance, but who really knows? Space Force, perhaps?