1 00:00:18,240 --> 00:00:22,440 One morning in April, I took a train from Moscow to a town 2 00:00:22,440 --> 00:00:24,400 called Gagarin. 3 00:00:37,040 --> 00:00:41,920 This is where the popular version of how the Russians conquered space begins, 4 00:00:45,640 --> 00:00:52,040 in the otherwise non-descript town they've named after their hero. 5 00:00:56,840 --> 00:01:03,840 On April 12th 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to go into space. 6 00:01:05,920 --> 00:01:11,720 It was the height of the Cold War. No-one could say it wasn't a triumph for communism. 7 00:01:11,720 --> 00:01:16,800 It was a new emotion which is impossible, I think, to describe in detail. It was... 8 00:01:16,800 --> 00:01:17,880 HE INHALES 9 00:01:21,400 --> 00:01:25,760 Something really great for everybody happened, 10 00:01:25,760 --> 00:01:32,000 and perhaps a little hope that new times started from this day. 11 00:01:37,640 --> 00:01:41,640 But all this razzmatazz tells only half the story. 12 00:01:43,400 --> 00:01:48,960 Finding out about the other half, the unspoken half, 13 00:01:48,960 --> 00:01:51,520 took me on a strange journey, 14 00:01:51,520 --> 00:01:54,280 a journey into a Russian world 15 00:01:54,280 --> 00:02:00,920 where mysticism and science merge, and nothing is certain, not even death. 16 00:02:00,920 --> 00:02:04,800 So their heads are down underneath there, are they? Yes. 17 00:02:04,800 --> 00:02:08,360 It doesn't make sense to die because it's not pleasant, it's not nice, 18 00:02:08,360 --> 00:02:11,920 nothing good happens out of it, at least for the person who dies. 19 00:02:15,040 --> 00:02:18,320 What links the two is a dream of the future... 20 00:02:21,800 --> 00:02:24,640 ..in which science would make us all immortal... 21 00:02:28,120 --> 00:02:29,840 ..and supermen would rule the universe. 22 00:02:29,840 --> 00:02:34,360 # I feel like I'm knocking on heaven's door 23 00:02:37,960 --> 00:02:42,320 # Knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door 24 00:02:44,160 --> 00:02:46,920 # Knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door... # 25 00:02:47,920 --> 00:02:51,480 It was not where I expected to start a story on space. 26 00:02:51,480 --> 00:02:54,720 But this is the only place where you can find a statue in the main street 27 00:02:54,720 --> 00:02:58,440 to the man some people say is the true father 28 00:02:58,440 --> 00:03:00,760 of space travel in Russia. 29 00:03:02,520 --> 00:03:04,640 No, not him. 30 00:03:04,640 --> 00:03:09,440 This man, a 19th-century sage called Nikolai Fedorov, 31 00:03:09,440 --> 00:03:13,920 and the inspiration of a uniquely Russian view of the world, called cosmism. 32 00:03:16,240 --> 00:03:19,320 Alexander! Hello! 33 00:03:20,160 --> 00:03:21,600 What's that? 34 00:03:21,600 --> 00:03:22,840 Show it off. 35 00:03:22,840 --> 00:03:26,040 IN RUSSIAN: 36 00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:51,200 Alexander Boiko is a cosmist. 37 00:03:52,760 --> 00:03:56,640 Some of the movement's early heroes adorn the walls of the town. 38 00:03:58,160 --> 00:04:04,600 The core of their idea was that the whole universe is alive, and man is inseparable from it. 39 00:04:27,960 --> 00:04:30,080 And this is now. 40 00:04:32,920 --> 00:04:37,120 The current queen of cosmism held court, we discovered, 41 00:04:37,120 --> 00:04:39,440 in a children's library. 42 00:04:43,880 --> 00:04:46,160 Her name is Anastasia Gacheva. 43 00:04:49,360 --> 00:04:54,400 That's Fedorov, and would you believe it, he came from a long line 44 00:04:54,400 --> 00:04:58,280 not of Fedorovs, but of princes called Gagarin. 45 00:05:00,760 --> 00:05:03,480 IN RUSSIAN: 46 00:05:27,920 --> 00:05:32,320 And it was the wide horizons around that oak tree, said Anastasia, 47 00:05:32,320 --> 00:05:36,360 which first inspired Fedorov to think beyond the limit. 48 00:06:09,160 --> 00:06:10,680 Wow. 49 00:06:11,640 --> 00:06:16,480 'Anastasia said she had something she wanted to show me. 50 00:06:16,480 --> 00:06:21,920 'Not old documents about Fedorov as I expected, but a 50-year-old front page 51 00:06:21,920 --> 00:06:25,440 'announcing that the Soviet Union had just put a man into space.' 52 00:06:25,440 --> 00:06:31,080 "The captain of the first spaceship, it's ours, Soviet." 53 00:06:31,080 --> 00:06:36,520 "A great victory for thought and hard work." 54 00:06:38,920 --> 00:06:41,240 "The world applauds Yuri Gagarin." 55 00:07:10,080 --> 00:07:13,160 YURI GAGARIN IN RUSSIAN: 56 00:07:24,880 --> 00:07:28,520 Anastasia said she had a friend she thought I should meet. 57 00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:35,520 He was hard to miss, even in the Moscow traffic. 58 00:07:35,520 --> 00:07:40,120 His name was Valery Borisov, and apparently he knew everything 59 00:07:40,120 --> 00:07:43,480 there was to know about Fedorov's domestic life. 60 00:08:00,920 --> 00:08:02,480 But Fedorov led a double life, 61 00:08:02,480 --> 00:08:06,520 working in places like this, living like a pauper. 62 00:08:16,560 --> 00:08:19,120 And he ate like a saint, 63 00:08:19,120 --> 00:08:22,440 said Valery, just bread, tea and water. 64 00:08:49,840 --> 00:08:54,040 Devout Christians like Fedorov faced a dilemma in those days. 65 00:08:54,040 --> 00:08:56,400 Outside the churches, 66 00:08:56,400 --> 00:09:01,200 society hovered on the cusp between ancient and modern. 67 00:09:01,200 --> 00:09:06,280 Most of them feared that science would destroy their religion. 68 00:09:07,400 --> 00:09:12,000 Fedorov's genius was to enlist it in support. 69 00:09:15,400 --> 00:09:19,440 Valery had invited me to visit him in his garden. 70 00:09:25,520 --> 00:09:30,280 It turned out to be less of an organic creation, more of a dream world. 71 00:09:51,360 --> 00:09:56,560 In fact, most of the things in his cosmic garden looked dead. 72 00:10:03,720 --> 00:10:08,000 Was it just the cruelty of April, I wondered, or a symbol? 73 00:10:38,280 --> 00:10:43,480 Sublime - but what had it got to do with space, I asked? 74 00:11:04,680 --> 00:11:09,480 GUITARS PLAY MOURNFUL TUNE 75 00:11:12,840 --> 00:11:16,240 Don't think cosmism has died its own death in the modern world. 76 00:11:18,920 --> 00:11:24,720 I was on my way to meet someone who had a business plan for eternal life. 77 00:11:30,240 --> 00:11:34,760 SPEECH OBSCURED BY RUSSIAN SINGING 78 00:11:38,680 --> 00:11:41,920 Not exactly a gateway to paradise. 79 00:11:45,320 --> 00:11:47,440 Hi. Hello. 80 00:11:47,440 --> 00:11:50,560 'The man who greeted me was called Danila Medvedev. 81 00:11:50,560 --> 00:11:53,760 'His group call themselves Transhumanists. 82 00:11:55,920 --> 00:11:58,960 'They believe they can do what Fedorov promised. 83 00:11:58,960 --> 00:12:01,840 'Live forever thanks to science.' 84 00:12:01,840 --> 00:12:06,320 This is a temporary dry ice storage box, 85 00:12:06,320 --> 00:12:08,640 or cooling box, can be used for that as well. 86 00:12:08,640 --> 00:12:13,200 You put a body in for how long? A couple of months we use this one. 87 00:12:13,200 --> 00:12:15,800 This is a small one, so we give the... 88 00:12:15,800 --> 00:12:19,440 You know, those patients who stored only their head or a brain here. 89 00:12:19,440 --> 00:12:22,120 What, so you get the body and cut their head off, do you? 90 00:12:22,120 --> 00:12:26,160 Yes. Yeah. I see. So is there one in there now? 91 00:12:26,160 --> 00:12:30,120 Yes. There are a couple of patients there and they have been here for five years. 92 00:12:30,120 --> 00:12:33,000 Oh, really? Yes. OK. Is it possible to look? 93 00:12:33,000 --> 00:12:34,480 Yes. 94 00:12:41,640 --> 00:12:45,320 So, the heads are down underneath there somewhere? Yes. 95 00:12:45,320 --> 00:12:48,280 They are. 96 00:12:48,280 --> 00:12:54,400 Beyond that is liquid nitrogen, and submerged in liquid nitrogen are metal containers 97 00:12:54,400 --> 00:12:57,160 for the patient's heads or brains inside. 98 00:12:57,160 --> 00:13:00,680 Confident fellow, to call them patients! 99 00:13:00,680 --> 00:13:04,320 Most people tend to feel that if something is impossible today, 100 00:13:04,320 --> 00:13:06,400 it will never be possible in the future. 101 00:13:06,400 --> 00:13:08,800 We have the opposite way of thinking. 102 00:13:08,800 --> 00:13:13,480 We think that some technologies, 103 00:13:13,480 --> 00:13:15,480 some different things we want to happen 104 00:13:15,480 --> 00:13:20,920 can basically be taken for granted. Just not now, in the future. 105 00:13:22,280 --> 00:13:26,240 Outside, it was like a set from some dystopic movie. 106 00:13:26,240 --> 00:13:31,280 He'd come to cryology, he told me, from investment banking. 107 00:13:32,720 --> 00:13:34,720 What do you want to be immortal for? 108 00:13:34,720 --> 00:13:36,480 I just don't want to die. 109 00:13:36,480 --> 00:13:41,040 It doesn't make sense to die, because it's not pleasant, it's not nice, 110 00:13:41,040 --> 00:13:45,120 nothing good happens out of it, at least for the person who dies. 111 00:13:45,120 --> 00:13:48,880 Wouldn't you get bored? No. I wouldn't get bored so much 112 00:13:48,880 --> 00:13:53,640 that it would make eternal life bad on balance. 113 00:13:53,640 --> 00:13:59,840 And now we store the patients here in this container. 114 00:13:59,840 --> 00:14:05,080 But bodies to Danila are already yesterday's technology. 115 00:14:05,080 --> 00:14:10,240 His version of Fedorov's dream is to upload his identity into a computer file 116 00:14:10,240 --> 00:14:13,200 and live forever in cyberspace. 117 00:14:13,200 --> 00:14:17,800 Transhumanists don't care about having a body, they care about becoming post-humans. 118 00:14:17,800 --> 00:14:19,400 As we get closer and closer 119 00:14:19,400 --> 00:14:21,720 to actually becoming post-humans, 120 00:14:21,720 --> 00:14:23,720 uploading ourselves into computers, 121 00:14:23,720 --> 00:14:29,360 then it doesn't actually matter where your brain resides, because 122 00:14:29,360 --> 00:14:35,160 it's run inside a computer and it doesn't matter if the computer is inside the moon or inside the Earth. 123 00:14:35,160 --> 00:14:40,200 Somehow I felt Fedorov might have had something more spiritual in mind. 124 00:14:40,200 --> 00:14:43,840 I think the general idea is we are 125 00:14:43,840 --> 00:14:47,560 following his plan that science find a way to deal with death, 126 00:14:47,560 --> 00:14:49,880 and we're doing that. 127 00:14:49,880 --> 00:14:54,000 Would there still be good and evil in your futuristic world? 128 00:14:54,000 --> 00:14:58,960 I don't think that if you have sufficient intelligence you can have evil, 129 00:14:58,960 --> 00:15:04,080 because usually evil happening in the world is the result 130 00:15:04,080 --> 00:15:07,840 of either lack of intelligence or lack of other resources. 131 00:15:07,840 --> 00:15:13,240 So smart people who have healthy brains, 132 00:15:13,240 --> 00:15:16,800 they don't commit bad things if they have enough resources. 133 00:15:16,800 --> 00:15:21,080 So it would be a world for rich, healthy people, would it? 134 00:15:21,080 --> 00:15:25,800 It would be a world of rich, healthy people, not for rich, healthy people. 135 00:15:25,800 --> 00:15:29,080 'That's revisionism for you...' 136 00:15:33,640 --> 00:15:36,440 I headed back into the 19th century, 137 00:15:36,440 --> 00:15:40,080 to the great Rumyantsev Library over the road from the Kremlin. 138 00:15:41,600 --> 00:15:47,360 As a special favour, Anastasia had arranged for me to be taken up to the very top, 139 00:15:47,360 --> 00:15:52,680 through the roof rafters to the balcony, from which Fedorov had contemplated the heavens. 140 00:16:05,920 --> 00:16:07,720 What a view. 141 00:16:07,720 --> 00:16:10,240 No wonder his thoughts turned to space travel. 142 00:16:23,400 --> 00:16:27,200 A sort of mystical mission control. 143 00:16:27,200 --> 00:16:32,040 Fedorov, it was emerging, had an obsession with controlling things, very Russian. 144 00:17:04,400 --> 00:17:07,200 We went down to the reading room. 145 00:17:07,200 --> 00:17:11,760 For 20 years, Fedorov worked here as a senior librarian. 146 00:17:11,760 --> 00:17:16,720 Today's librarian brought some rare old papers out 147 00:17:16,720 --> 00:17:18,480 from the vault for me to see. 148 00:17:28,480 --> 00:17:29,800 'The common task. 149 00:17:29,800 --> 00:17:34,320 'That was what he called the search for eternal life through science.' 150 00:17:34,320 --> 00:17:36,360 Gosh, I can't read it. 151 00:17:36,360 --> 00:17:38,720 But I think I can read that. 152 00:17:41,040 --> 00:17:43,160 Universal... 153 00:17:44,720 --> 00:17:46,560 That's resurrection... 154 00:17:46,560 --> 00:17:50,880 Too hard for me. My friend Theresa did rather better. 155 00:17:50,880 --> 00:17:54,440 This line which separates the two parts of the join 156 00:17:54,440 --> 00:17:59,960 seems to say, "The transition from blindness and lack of ability 157 00:17:59,960 --> 00:18:05,880 "to be in charge of your own destiny, to self-direction, 158 00:18:05,880 --> 00:18:08,440 "self-regulation and self-government." 159 00:18:08,440 --> 00:18:10,000 And when you cross that line, 160 00:18:10,000 --> 00:18:14,600 then you're in the ideal world where you have the resurrection of everybody, 161 00:18:14,600 --> 00:18:16,880 the unification of worlds. 162 00:18:16,880 --> 00:18:19,720 Fedorov wrote very little down. 163 00:18:19,720 --> 00:18:24,680 What makes him significant is the influence he had on other great thinkers. 164 00:18:35,200 --> 00:18:39,640 This is actually a letter written by Dostoevsky, 165 00:18:39,640 --> 00:18:45,240 and it's written to Fedorov's pupil, and it says here, 166 00:18:45,240 --> 00:18:47,120 "I have just become acquainted 167 00:18:47,120 --> 00:18:49,320 "with the ideas of this great thinker 168 00:18:49,320 --> 00:18:54,080 "and I would very much appreciate that you could convey to him how much 169 00:18:54,080 --> 00:18:57,680 "his ideas have absolutely enthralled me." 170 00:18:57,680 --> 00:19:00,760 Then he's saying that, "When I read these ideas 171 00:19:00,760 --> 00:19:03,160 "and when I understand what they mean, 172 00:19:03,160 --> 00:19:06,720 "I feel as though they're completely part of me, 173 00:19:06,720 --> 00:19:09,560 "that they are close to my heart, they could be mine." 174 00:19:09,560 --> 00:19:11,000 Dostoevsky. 175 00:19:11,000 --> 00:19:14,920 That's Dostoevsky, about Fedorov's philosophy and ideas. 176 00:19:14,920 --> 00:19:20,600 But the person who injected those ideas into the bloodstream of Russian science 177 00:19:20,600 --> 00:19:22,120 was a near-deaf teenager 178 00:19:22,120 --> 00:19:24,960 who came here to study because he couldn't keep up at school. 179 00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:29,080 His name was Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. 180 00:19:41,920 --> 00:19:44,840 For three years, Fedorov helped the young Tsiolkovsky 181 00:19:44,840 --> 00:19:47,200 choose books to improve his mind. 182 00:20:12,440 --> 00:20:17,240 This is the park in Moscow that celebrates the official story of space. 183 00:20:17,240 --> 00:20:24,280 Pride of place among the steel and granite memories goes to that same deaf boy, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. 184 00:20:30,240 --> 00:20:36,600 The kids must think he thrived under the regime that erected this monument, but it simply isn't true. 185 00:20:36,600 --> 00:20:42,560 For most of his life, Tsiolkovsky lived in the sticks, unrecognised, unrewarded. 186 00:20:42,560 --> 00:20:47,600 And there he would probably have stayed but for one extraordinary insight. 187 00:20:53,600 --> 00:20:56,840 I was looking for an article about rocket propulsion 188 00:20:56,840 --> 00:21:00,840 that Tsiolkovsky had published in the very year that Fedorov died. 189 00:21:02,880 --> 00:21:05,320 This is why it's famous. 190 00:21:05,320 --> 00:21:08,920 Look at the date. 1903. 191 00:21:08,920 --> 00:21:10,600 May. 192 00:21:10,600 --> 00:21:16,360 An article published in an obscure science journal in Russian. 193 00:21:16,360 --> 00:21:22,480 Full of calculations for deciding how much you need to 194 00:21:22,480 --> 00:21:26,400 propel the rocket, what speed you need to get to, what fuel you need 195 00:21:26,400 --> 00:21:28,760 to get out of the Earth's atmosphere. 196 00:21:30,400 --> 00:21:38,080 And amazingly, he wrote that seven months before the Wright Brothers had even flown a yard. 197 00:21:38,080 --> 00:21:41,000 But virtually no-one took any notice. 198 00:21:45,160 --> 00:21:50,520 To find out why, I made my way to a dacha outside Moscow. 199 00:21:55,360 --> 00:21:59,920 Inside was Alexander Urnov, grandson of the man who helped save 200 00:21:59,920 --> 00:22:03,720 Tsiolkovsky's stroke of genius from oblivion. 201 00:22:03,760 --> 00:22:04,800 Hi. 202 00:22:04,800 --> 00:22:06,640 Morning. Would you like some? 203 00:22:06,640 --> 00:22:08,280 I'd love some. That'd be great. 204 00:22:08,280 --> 00:22:11,360 Thanks. This is just my grandfather. 205 00:22:11,360 --> 00:22:13,200 Let's see. 206 00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:20,760 And this is your grandfather as well, is it? Yes. 207 00:22:20,760 --> 00:22:23,920 In those days, Boris Vorobyev was quite a man about town. 208 00:22:26,400 --> 00:22:28,520 He lived in this house off Pushkin Square. 209 00:22:28,520 --> 00:22:31,840 He was into every new trend. 210 00:22:31,840 --> 00:22:34,120 We lived in the same apartment. 211 00:22:34,120 --> 00:22:37,560 His room was called Dedovo Komnata - 212 00:22:37,560 --> 00:22:39,160 grandfather's room, 213 00:22:39,160 --> 00:22:41,680 and we came, my brother and me, 214 00:22:41,680 --> 00:22:46,720 from time to time, to him, and got him a lot of questions. 215 00:22:48,760 --> 00:22:53,000 As the transport revolution advanced, his grandfather 216 00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:56,240 decided to launch a magazine specialising in aviation. 217 00:22:56,240 --> 00:23:01,000 Somebody said to him that there is one dreamer who thinks about 218 00:23:01,000 --> 00:23:03,920 exploration of the space and flights to the moon. 219 00:23:03,920 --> 00:23:07,280 He bought him a letter inviting him to write something for his journal. 220 00:23:07,280 --> 00:23:11,920 And Tsiolkovsky wrote a very detailed paper 221 00:23:11,920 --> 00:23:17,240 saying that yes, he has materials, he has scientific works 222 00:23:17,240 --> 00:23:21,160 and about explorations of space, not only aviation, 223 00:23:21,160 --> 00:23:24,560 but much larger, universe, I would say. 224 00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:28,320 Editorial board will shock this person, he's thinking about 225 00:23:28,320 --> 00:23:31,760 exploration of universe, because at that time, 226 00:23:31,760 --> 00:23:37,160 it seems to be much more important problems on the Earth. 227 00:23:37,160 --> 00:23:39,440 Indeed there were. 228 00:23:39,440 --> 00:23:43,840 Russia was entering the death throes of its imperial age. 229 00:23:43,840 --> 00:23:49,760 But the paper was published, and Tsiolkovsky wrote to thank Alexander's grandfather. 230 00:23:49,760 --> 00:23:53,800 This letter from Tsiolkovsky started with the words that... 231 00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:13,240 This person is speaking like a prophet, and it's true, he became a prophet, actually. 232 00:24:16,640 --> 00:24:20,520 Once again, his article went unnoticed, submerged 233 00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:23,280 beneath the turmoil of revolution. 234 00:24:23,280 --> 00:24:27,760 But with peace came a brief utopian period, 235 00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:31,560 when to dream of new worlds 236 00:24:31,560 --> 00:24:34,080 seemed perfectly normal. 237 00:24:34,080 --> 00:24:36,560 This period of the '20s, 238 00:24:36,560 --> 00:24:39,680 starting from the revolution, it was a spirit of the time. 239 00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:41,760 You know, 240 00:24:41,760 --> 00:24:44,800 people... 241 00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:50,920 were enthusiastic about changing of everything. 242 00:24:53,840 --> 00:24:59,160 This is one of the places the intellectuals of the new age used to meet. 243 00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:04,080 An arts centre then, and an arts centre of sorts now. 244 00:25:10,200 --> 00:25:14,480 The band call themselves Cosmis, retro-utopians. 245 00:25:20,280 --> 00:25:25,080 But back in the '20s, the place was full of the real thing, 246 00:25:25,080 --> 00:25:26,600 artists, musicians, writers, 247 00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:31,760 poets and filmmakers who found the idea of cosmism intoxicating. 248 00:25:35,360 --> 00:25:41,200 They queued round the block when Aelita, Queen of Mars came out in 1924. 249 00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:44,800 For example, very rich people and very famous people, 250 00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:49,120 they supported Bolsheviks, just spent money, funding, etc, 251 00:25:49,120 --> 00:25:54,880 because everybody would like change what we see now here... 252 00:25:54,880 --> 00:25:57,200 into something different. 253 00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:06,720 So people were going to make trips to unknown places to discover something. 254 00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:10,240 It was great enthusiasm. 255 00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:14,760 And it was an atmosphere in which Tsiolkovsky would at last prosper. 256 00:26:20,120 --> 00:26:23,400 Let me see that. It's his grandson. 257 00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:26,480 Oh, really? Tsiolkovsky and his grandson. 258 00:26:26,480 --> 00:26:28,000 Yeah. Gosh. 259 00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:33,240 That's a rare photo. This is unique. What does it say on the back? 260 00:26:33,240 --> 00:26:38,520 Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, 71, with his grandson. 261 00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:43,760 In his old age, his ideas for space travel 262 00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:46,120 were finally being taken seriously. 263 00:26:50,120 --> 00:26:53,280 But Utopia was over. 264 00:26:53,280 --> 00:26:57,920 He cannot be a philosopher because it was a period 265 00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:01,920 when we had only one philosophy, Marxist philosophy, 266 00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:04,920 so you should be very cautious. 267 00:27:04,920 --> 00:27:07,280 Either you became very famous, 268 00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:11,960 it means that Stalin will look at it positively, 269 00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:14,760 or you just will be imprisoned and killed. 270 00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:17,800 Tsiolkovsky didn't care. 271 00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:20,400 He knew he was near the end anyway, 272 00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:24,520 but he did want a state pension to look after his wife. 273 00:27:24,520 --> 00:27:28,840 Somebody gave him an idea to write a letter directly to Stalin. 274 00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:32,960 And it seems to be he did it, and Stalin answered. 275 00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:37,720 And since this answer was made from Stalin directly, 276 00:27:37,720 --> 00:27:40,880 even Stalin wrote in Russian... 277 00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:46,120 So he got his pension, 278 00:27:46,120 --> 00:27:50,840 a medal, and two years later, a grand state funeral. 279 00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:06,880 The space establishment is celebrating Cosmonauts' Day. 280 00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:14,880 Many of these people have spent their entire working lives in total secrecy, making rockets 281 00:28:14,880 --> 00:28:18,120 but to launch warheads more often than men. 282 00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:31,120 This was their annual happy hour celebrating their heroes, 283 00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:36,360 though not quite in the way I was expecting. 284 00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:47,400 I saw Georgi Gretchko in the audience. 285 00:28:47,400 --> 00:28:49,840 He was one of the first Russians to walk in space. 286 00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:52,480 He told me something intriguing. 287 00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:55,520 When he was young, many of the books by the man they now called 288 00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:58,800 the father of space travel were virtually banned. 289 00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:20,680 And why was that? 290 00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:48,560 # Baby, do you understand me now? 291 00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:52,560 # Sometimes I feel a little mad 292 00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:55,560 # But don't you know that 293 00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:59,040 # No-one alive can always be an angel 294 00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:01,120 # When things go wrong 295 00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:03,360 # I seem to be bad 296 00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:08,160 # I'm just a soul whose intentions are good 297 00:30:09,080 --> 00:30:10,280 # Oh, Lord 298 00:30:10,280 --> 00:30:13,560 # Please don't let me be misunderstood. # 299 00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:20,080 This is the city where Tsiolkovsky lived for most of his life, 300 00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:23,560 fretting about money and the future of mankind. 301 00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:31,240 I'd arranged to meet his great-grandson Sergei Samburov. 302 00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:35,320 Understandably perhaps, he wanted to meet at the great Museum of Space 303 00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:39,040 they've built in Tsiolkovsky's honour. 304 00:30:43,640 --> 00:30:48,560 Tsiolkovsky died before a scrap of this stuff was built, of course. 305 00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:50,960 But the myth is everything. 306 00:30:50,960 --> 00:30:53,840 Tsiolkovsky is establishment now, 307 00:30:53,840 --> 00:30:59,800 and so up to a point is his great-grandson, who has a good job in the prestigious space industry. 308 00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:07,120 After a few minutes looking around, he said there was something he wanted to show me, 309 00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:09,160 in the park along the road. 310 00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:10,680 What is this place? 311 00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:21,080 Monument to an incorrect philosopher. 312 00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:26,000 I asked Sergei which would be most important to him - 313 00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:29,960 his rockets, or his blueprint for the human race? 314 00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:54,080 This house became a shrine for every Russian cosmonaut. 315 00:31:54,520 --> 00:31:57,240 This is where Tsiolkovsky sat, 316 00:31:57,240 --> 00:32:03,960 and where, as cosmonauts who are going into space, as a special favour, they're allowed to sit. 317 00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:34,720 Tsiolkovsky, unlike Fedorov, 318 00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:39,280 never stopped writing on whatever engaged his inquisitive mind. 319 00:32:39,280 --> 00:32:44,560 But a recurrent theme was how to save humanity when the planet died. 320 00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:19,200 This is a man who would have fitted the bill. 321 00:34:19,200 --> 00:34:26,360 The old Cold Warriors were paying their respects to the engineer who led them into space. 322 00:34:31,680 --> 00:34:34,640 On the face of it, Sergei Korolev was like them, 323 00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:37,680 shunning the limelight to serve the state. 324 00:34:51,560 --> 00:34:53,800 But would he tell us his name? 325 00:35:08,200 --> 00:35:10,760 I went to see Korolev's daughter 326 00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:15,520 who lived on the 14th floor of a smart block of flats in the centre of town. 327 00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:21,880 She sat down to show me the family photographs. 328 00:35:49,320 --> 00:35:53,280 Korolev and his friends had caught the space bug 329 00:35:53,280 --> 00:35:55,960 that was sweeping Russia. 330 00:35:55,960 --> 00:35:59,920 But their work had nothing to do with the Soviet state. 331 00:36:16,080 --> 00:36:18,040 The turning point came 332 00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:21,200 when a shrewd general spotted the military potential. 333 00:36:21,200 --> 00:36:24,480 They got a small grant to rent the cellar of that building. 334 00:36:39,560 --> 00:36:41,920 The half-truths of hindsight. 335 00:36:41,920 --> 00:36:46,280 What actually happened was their military protector fell from grace. 336 00:36:46,280 --> 00:36:49,880 And on June 27th 1938, 337 00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:55,840 the Secret Police turned up at the Korolevs' flat on the top floor of this building. 338 00:37:29,240 --> 00:37:32,040 Did he think he was going to be executed? 339 00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:44,120 One minute a bright young hope for the future, 340 00:37:44,120 --> 00:37:48,360 the next, hard labour, in one of the worst camps in the Gulag. 341 00:38:05,720 --> 00:38:08,840 The man who saved his life, ironically, 342 00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:13,040 was the Secret Police boss, Lavrentii Beria, on the right. 343 00:38:13,920 --> 00:38:19,120 He saw that using the state's best scientists to break rocks 344 00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:22,520 or build railways wasn't exactly in the national interest. 345 00:38:22,520 --> 00:38:24,880 So he had him transferred to Moscow. 346 00:38:24,880 --> 00:38:27,960 I found the place where he was sent, 347 00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:30,480 here on Radio Street. 348 00:38:30,480 --> 00:38:35,200 That's the building, a sort of prison laboratory for brainy traitors. 349 00:38:35,200 --> 00:38:38,920 The plaque says that the famous aircraft designer Andrei Tupolev 350 00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:41,240 worked here for years. 351 00:38:41,240 --> 00:38:45,400 What it doesn't say is that he too was a prisoner, 352 00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:47,680 charged with wrecking state enterprises. 353 00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:53,000 The only fresh air Korolev got then was up there on the roof. 354 00:38:53,000 --> 00:38:56,640 Now he stands in the park, showered in Soviet honours, 355 00:38:56,640 --> 00:38:58,880 but deep down, I wondered, 356 00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:01,080 had this supremely practical man 357 00:39:01,080 --> 00:39:05,800 shared any of the incorrect tendencies of his granite companion? 358 00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:43,640 But even if the only immortality he dreamed of was fame, 359 00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:47,080 that great day still had a bitter taste. 360 00:40:16,360 --> 00:40:20,040 And Korolev wasn't the only person with mixed feelings. 361 00:40:20,040 --> 00:40:24,120 Fedorov's followers still have their eyes on a bigger prize. 362 00:40:47,040 --> 00:40:51,720 In the optimistic aftermath of Gagarin's flight, 363 00:40:51,720 --> 00:40:56,160 building accelerated on a new town in the Siberian forest. 364 00:40:56,160 --> 00:40:59,360 It's called Akademgorodok. 365 00:40:59,360 --> 00:41:02,360 It was built as a place for scientists 366 00:41:02,360 --> 00:41:08,680 to live as one big community, as a place for generating ideas. 367 00:41:08,680 --> 00:41:12,000 They wanted to create a paradise 368 00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:19,600 for scientists, so that they would feel safe and comfortable here. 369 00:41:19,600 --> 00:41:24,160 Artem was taking me to ISRICA, a research institute 370 00:41:24,160 --> 00:41:28,800 where the DNA of Tsiolkovsky and Fedorov has survived everything. 371 00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:32,920 Do you know much about ISRICA itself? I know what my mum's been doing. What's that? 372 00:41:32,920 --> 00:41:37,680 She's been trying to figure out ways 373 00:41:37,680 --> 00:41:40,400 of distant communicating between 374 00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:47,280 the human mind and, er, 375 00:41:47,280 --> 00:41:49,800 other cosmic consciousnesses 376 00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:53,080 in the universe. 377 00:41:53,080 --> 00:41:56,760 Gosh, I see, so how to communicate 378 00:41:56,760 --> 00:41:59,440 from someone on Earth 379 00:41:59,440 --> 00:42:03,880 to some sort of being elsewhere. 380 00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:05,400 Right. Right. 381 00:42:12,640 --> 00:42:17,360 His mother and the boss, Alexander Trofimov, were in the middle of an experiment. 382 00:42:21,040 --> 00:42:24,160 On my right, a large aluminium wall. 383 00:42:24,160 --> 00:42:28,320 In front of it, a technician monitoring brainwaves. 384 00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:31,920 Their theory is that objects 385 00:42:32,280 --> 00:42:35,680 give out information about themselves. 386 00:42:35,680 --> 00:42:39,520 They've placed one inside what they call the transmission zone. 387 00:42:43,400 --> 00:42:46,000 And there is the receiver. 388 00:43:45,200 --> 00:43:49,320 They call the chamber that Anton sat in a Kozyrev Mirror, 389 00:43:49,320 --> 00:43:54,760 named after an astrophysicist who spent 11 years in the Gulag. 390 00:43:54,760 --> 00:43:58,360 Cut off from other scientists, 391 00:43:58,360 --> 00:44:01,760 he developed his own unorthodox theories. 392 00:44:01,760 --> 00:44:06,760 One was that all cosmic matter is ceaselessly communicating with itself. 393 00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:10,720 And what they believe here is that laser beams 394 00:44:10,720 --> 00:44:13,160 and anti-magnetic chambers like this 395 00:44:13,160 --> 00:44:17,120 help them tune into that information network. 396 00:44:19,520 --> 00:44:23,240 One of their heroes is Vladimir Vernadsky, 397 00:44:23,240 --> 00:44:28,160 a contemporary of Tsiolkovsky who said there was a third dimension of the cosmos, 398 00:44:28,160 --> 00:44:30,480 beyond things and living creatures, 399 00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:34,720 which he called a noosphere or sphere of the mind. 400 00:44:36,320 --> 00:44:39,440 And that, say this branch of the cosmists, 401 00:44:39,440 --> 00:44:42,080 is where to find immortality. 402 00:44:42,080 --> 00:44:47,000 The man I needed to see was Alexander's partner, 403 00:44:47,000 --> 00:44:52,080 Vlail Kaznacheev, the current guru of cosmism. 404 00:44:53,920 --> 00:44:58,000 He's now in his 80s and too frail to come to the laboratory. 405 00:44:58,000 --> 00:45:01,440 But he welcomed us into his house, 406 00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:05,080 and began to explain how cosmism had evolved. 407 00:45:51,600 --> 00:45:57,400 Let's make a disc for concentration on two colours. 408 00:45:57,400 --> 00:46:00,560 'I thought I'd better give it a try myself. 409 00:46:00,560 --> 00:46:04,640 'They tested my reactions. They measured my cosmic aura.' 410 00:46:04,640 --> 00:46:07,400 All of your parameters are normal. 411 00:46:07,400 --> 00:46:12,920 Green shows normal. 'And then I went into the mirrors.' 412 00:46:14,400 --> 00:46:19,200 Make a pause, make a stop, 413 00:46:19,200 --> 00:46:22,200 and just put yourself 414 00:46:22,200 --> 00:46:25,200 to relax, relaxation. 415 00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:30,680 Say hello to this information system 416 00:46:30,680 --> 00:46:32,880 and find inside yourself 417 00:46:32,880 --> 00:46:35,640 what are you looking for. 418 00:46:35,640 --> 00:46:38,240 And find the answers inside. 419 00:46:38,240 --> 00:46:41,880 Just sit here and make some questions 420 00:46:41,880 --> 00:46:44,920 that you can ask this system, 421 00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:47,560 with help of mind of the universe. 422 00:46:47,560 --> 00:46:53,320 Make this conversation with universal mind. OK. OK. 423 00:46:53,320 --> 00:46:55,720 See you later. See you later. 424 00:47:16,720 --> 00:47:19,000 Let's finish this contact. 425 00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:21,320 Well, it was peaceful. Yeah. 426 00:47:21,320 --> 00:47:23,800 I knew it. 427 00:47:44,560 --> 00:47:48,040 Taisiya, with years of practice and faith, 428 00:47:48,040 --> 00:47:50,560 had much better results. 429 00:47:50,560 --> 00:47:52,520 She showed me the record she kept 430 00:47:52,520 --> 00:47:56,160 of the images that had flooded into her head inside the mirror. 431 00:48:19,720 --> 00:48:22,120 I'm beginning to get the idea. 432 00:48:22,120 --> 00:48:24,520 We're talking close encounters here. 433 00:48:44,160 --> 00:48:46,520 And that is cosmism today. 434 00:48:46,520 --> 00:48:50,480 Man inextricably bound up in the universe 435 00:48:50,480 --> 00:48:54,240 whether he travels through it, or stays on Earth. 436 00:49:40,040 --> 00:49:43,040 Whatever you think of the dreamers, 437 00:49:43,040 --> 00:49:48,160 you can't fault the scientific credentials of Alexander Urnov and the Lebedev Institute. 438 00:49:48,160 --> 00:49:51,760 Portraits of Nobel prizes... 439 00:49:51,760 --> 00:49:55,400 Look at that wall lined with Nobel prizewinners, 440 00:49:55,400 --> 00:49:57,600 who've earned their spurs here. 441 00:49:57,600 --> 00:50:01,120 Alexander is a solar physicist working at the cutting edge. 442 00:50:01,120 --> 00:50:05,560 And there on the surface of the sun these cosmic questions 443 00:50:05,560 --> 00:50:07,600 are not thought crazy. 444 00:50:07,600 --> 00:50:11,560 What are we looking at here? We see how alive the solar corona is. 445 00:50:11,560 --> 00:50:15,040 Yeah. I can show you another example. 446 00:50:17,720 --> 00:50:22,640 An international satellite started to explore the sun 447 00:50:22,640 --> 00:50:26,200 and they saw the structure of solar corona. 448 00:50:26,200 --> 00:50:31,720 They start to speak, people start to speak, the solar corona is alive. 449 00:50:31,720 --> 00:50:34,760 What do you mean when you say alive? 450 00:50:34,760 --> 00:50:38,880 Well, not alive. This is I think one of the questions in modern science 451 00:50:38,880 --> 00:50:42,320 which is in the frontier. 452 00:50:42,320 --> 00:50:45,520 His words felt like a blessing on my whole journey. 453 00:50:45,520 --> 00:50:48,000 But he hadn't finished. 454 00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:51,200 Fedorov, formulated, so great, 455 00:50:51,200 --> 00:50:55,320 so fantastic, and a huge idea, 456 00:50:55,320 --> 00:50:58,760 which I cannot compare with anything else. 457 00:50:58,760 --> 00:51:04,120 What is the name, or if somebody thinks different, 458 00:51:04,120 --> 00:51:07,640 he have to correct me? 459 00:51:07,640 --> 00:51:12,440 What is anything else most important for human being as an answer, 460 00:51:12,440 --> 00:51:16,040 on the question - "what is the sense of your life?" 461 00:51:16,040 --> 00:51:19,320 And his idea helps to answer this question. 462 00:51:19,320 --> 00:51:23,640 The development of knowledge which science gives you 463 00:51:23,640 --> 00:51:27,600 helps to make you immortal. 464 00:51:27,600 --> 00:51:31,400 That is, I think, absolutely beautiful. 465 00:51:31,400 --> 00:51:35,400 I don't know anything more beautiful, speaking about ideas. 466 00:51:47,480 --> 00:51:51,280 It was time for my pilgrimage to the hometown 467 00:51:51,280 --> 00:51:56,040 of a carpenter's son who unwittingly fulfilled Fedorov's prediction. 468 00:52:10,520 --> 00:52:15,120 In the town's stadium, they were starting the Annual Gagarin Games. 469 00:52:15,120 --> 00:52:17,800 Apparently this was the sort of fun that young Yuri had 470 00:52:17,800 --> 00:52:19,920 before Playstations, 471 00:52:19,920 --> 00:52:24,000 television, mobile phones. 472 00:52:25,000 --> 00:52:26,840 I bet. 473 00:52:31,600 --> 00:52:33,480 That woman, someone told me, 474 00:52:33,480 --> 00:52:36,080 was Yuri Gagarin's favourite niece, Tamara. 475 00:52:37,600 --> 00:52:41,360 I made a date to meet her at the family house. 476 00:53:22,200 --> 00:53:25,280 Young Yuri went off to technical college, 477 00:53:25,280 --> 00:53:29,520 got married and seemed to be doing well as some sort of test pilot. 478 00:53:29,520 --> 00:53:34,120 Back here, they had no idea what he was really up to. 479 00:54:53,240 --> 00:54:55,840 They celebrate it still, that moment 480 00:54:55,840 --> 00:54:59,360 when the Soviet Union excelled America. 481 00:55:05,440 --> 00:55:08,800 But it didn't last long. 482 00:55:08,800 --> 00:55:12,640 Within a decade, America was overhauling them in space, 483 00:55:12,640 --> 00:55:14,800 and Gagarin was dead, 484 00:55:14,800 --> 00:55:16,800 killed in a senseless air crash 485 00:55:16,800 --> 00:55:18,800 that left the nation distraught. 486 00:55:50,320 --> 00:55:55,440 50 years on, Gagarin has found a sort of immortality, 487 00:55:55,440 --> 00:55:59,400 forever young, forever smiling. 488 00:55:59,400 --> 00:56:04,280 All over Russia, churches have been handed back to Orthodox priests. 489 00:56:04,280 --> 00:56:08,480 But here, they worship different gods. 490 00:56:57,280 --> 00:57:01,920 This is the village where Yuri Gagarin was actually born. 491 00:57:01,920 --> 00:57:05,440 When he was seven, Nazi armies overran the place. 492 00:57:05,440 --> 00:57:11,200 I was told there was someone in the graveyard who'd been his pal when they were boys. 493 00:57:11,200 --> 00:57:13,480 And thus at the end, 494 00:57:13,480 --> 00:57:17,480 I learned of the real miracle, that Yuri Gagarin 495 00:57:17,480 --> 00:57:21,080 had grown old enough to fly into space at all. 496 00:57:37,120 --> 00:57:39,160 The hammer, he said, 497 00:57:39,160 --> 00:57:42,080 was for smashing the casings off the explosive heads. 498 00:58:09,960 --> 00:58:14,120 # There's a starman waiting in the sky 499 00:58:14,120 --> 00:58:16,960 # He'd like to come and meet us 500 00:58:16,960 --> 00:58:19,800 # But he thinks he'd blow our minds 501 00:58:19,800 --> 00:58:23,800 # There's a starman waiting in the sky 502 00:58:23,800 --> 00:58:26,560 # He's told us not to blow it 503 00:58:26,560 --> 00:58:28,960 # Cos he knows it's all worthwhile 504 00:58:28,960 --> 00:58:30,920 # He told me 505 00:58:30,920 --> 00:58:33,200 # Let the children lose it 506 00:58:33,200 --> 00:58:34,920 # Let the children use it 507 00:58:34,920 --> 00:58:38,920 # Let all the children boogie. # 508 00:58:39,760 --> 00:58:42,920 Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd 509 00:58:42,920 --> 00:58:45,880 E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk