It's always refreshing to see that our former Cold War opponents would be at home at Sundance. "First On the Moon" is an avant garde Russian movie about, as the film's Wikipedia entry states: "a group of journalists {who} are investigating a highly secret document when they uncover a sensational story: that even before the Second World War, in 1938, the first rocket was made in the USSR and Soviet scientists were planning to send an orbiter to the moon and back. The evidence is convincing; it is clear that in this case, Russian cosmonauts were first."
In Alexander Prokhorov's review he writes, "The film begins in Chile where the Soviet spacecraft apparently landed after its return from the moon and traces the fate of the first Soviet 'cosmopilot,' Ivan Kharlamov (Boris Vlasov). This Zelig-like character travels from Chile across the Pacific, and then across China to Mongolia until he is finally captured by the NKVD and sent to a psychiatric ward. Eventually, he miraculously escapes from his cell and assumes a series of identities that allow him to hide from the secret police and to survive in the hostile and erratic environment of Soviet Russia."
Here's a scene from the film:
Okay . . . that wasn't really the film. But you guys are up enough on your Russian pop culture that you weren't fooled, right?
Well, weren`t the Russians first in all important space projects? There was the first space flight, the first living being in space (Laika, the dog), the first man in space otside the spaceship, only in spacesuit... All the time they were one step beyond, untill the moonlanding. That is logicaly unacceptable. Their space technology has much deeper roots than the rest of the world.
Posted by: igor at February 13, 2008 09:36 AM
Anyone have a link to a trailer? Looks very interesting.
Posted by: Reginald Lunix at March 5, 2007 05:21 PM
1938? I don't think so.
It was computers that got us to the moon and back. The computational requirements of the mission simply could not be met back then. You can send a satellite up with reasonable success, as the Russians did with Sputnik, using slide rules.
But to make course corrections and a safe return, you have to have very accurate calculations available in real-time (or something very close).
Oh yeah, you'd also need multiple radar sites, with long range antennas, and powerful radio transmitters (microwave), and miniaturized components manufactured to very close tolerances, and...etc.
Posted by: Ranger Jay at March 5, 2007 02:46 PM
Well, in fairness the Russians were the first into space so they do deserve some credit.
As to who will be next on the moon....that's anyone's guess.
Posted by: David Hambling at March 5, 2007 08:43 AM
Well, weren`t the Russians first in all important space projects? There was the first space flight, the first living being in space (Laika, the dog), the first man in space otside the spaceship, only in spacesuit... All the time they were one step beyond, untill the moonlanding. That is logicaly unacceptable. Their space technology has much deeper roots than the rest of the world.
Posted by: igor at February 13, 2008 09:36 AM