It's such an interesting idea, at least to me, that human governments push their nations' immortality as far as they can. We see it in canon that Russia's boss forces him into situations where he is physically harmed. We see America's government refuse to tell him things, all while demanding his involvement in military action. But it makes me think, would the human governments of the United States and the Soviet Union manipulate their personifications into being used as test dummies for space travel?
The governments know just how deeply passionate (if not unhealthily obsessed) their personifications are with beating the other, and that personifications will always choose themselves to be harmed if it saves one of their people from being hurt or killed. It would be so easy for governments to convince a nation to use their human body as a test in early launches.
Do you want the Reds to win?
Do you want the capitalists to win? You know their nation is doing it.
Neither Alfred nor Ivan gives it a second thought, really. Not even a second is given to the question of "are we immortal in space? If I blow up/suffocate in space, do I revive the same way if I do on Earth? To stay immortal, do we need to have a physical connection to the Earth?"
These oh so highly secret missions of the early to mid-60s aren't known to anyone outside of a small group of space agency, government, and military officials.
No one knows what Alfred is doing until a NASA hr assistant accidentally calls Matthew a few hours before one of the tests because Matthew is listed as Alfred's next of kin and hr needs to confirm something, but this poor new hire hr employee wasn't told anything and thinks Alfred is just another human involved in secret testing. Gets the human blacklisted from federal employment for the rest of their life.
Ivan finally gets caught after a failed launch and the government practically dumps him on his sister's doorstep with a note to send him back when his skin comes back.
