MovieChat Forums > Space Race (2005) Discussion > To all you disappointed Russians

To all you disappointed Russians

posted 18 years ago by pertti.jarla
13 replies | jump to latest

Someone just commented angrily about the lack of MIR and Lunahod in this miniseries. Well, this is the story of the race between Von Braun and Korolev. To tell the story in four parts you have to leave out something.
Someone said he was "sure" that Lunahod 1 was before the first manned lunar landing: Lunahod happened in 1970, the first moon landing in 1969. It is all very easy to check before making angry remarks.
While some Russians in this series are cartoonish, yes, this is still by far the most balanced dramatization about the space race. The Spielberg/Hanks effort "From the Earth to the Moon" concentrated on NASA and even censorized Von Braun so largely it was ridicilous.

[–] beeryusa 18 years ago

I agree that 'Space Race' is the most even handed treatment of the USA/Soviet race to the moon, but that's not saying much, since the Russian efforts have been almost completely ignored in all other movies and TV dramas. Personally, I was very disappointed that the Russian lunar module design wasn't covered, and that the miniseries concentrated wholly on the Russian rocket disasters while the Apollo program was underway. It seemed almost as if the film's producers only used the Russian parts so that they could separate themselves from the far better films 'The Right Stuff' and 'From the Earth to the Moon'.

The other major omission was the first woman in space (as usual, unfortunately - I don't think any TV or movie has ever mentioned the first woman in space - it's just completely ignored). The film spends a lot of time on dogs in space, but I guess that perhaps in the view of the scriptwriters women are somewhat less important than dogs. Actually, the miniseries misses a whole bunch of 'firsts' that the Russians achieved, but this one is, in my view, unforgivable. If we were to go by this miniseries we would assume that there were no women astronauts in the Russian space program. I mean Tereshkova isn't even mentioned.

Like some Russian members have said, it would have been better if the miniseries had gone on to show (at the very least) the Apollo-Soyuz mission, since in my mind at least, that was the turning point from US-Russian competition to a more co-operative stance.

By the way, I'm English - just in case anyone thinks the Russians are the only ones disappointed by these facets of the miniseries.

[–] doomguy 18 years ago

Forgive me for being nit-picky, but From the Earth to the Moon did not involve Spielberg at all.
It was Ron Howard who did that one with Tom Hanks

[–] pertti.jarla 18 years ago

You don't have to apologize for being right :-)

[–] tegelane_5 17 years ago

I think it clearly shows also differece betwean two political systems, soviet and democratic USA.
1) Those three astronauts who died in that oxygene fire could have lived if soviets had told about the same kind of accident. Also i don`t know why they had to use almost pure oxygene anyway.
2) Spacewalk, soviets did`nt reveal what difficulties arouse later about getting inside of spaceship.
Also there is no big difference did somebody get released from Gulag 44 or 45. Where he didn`t had to be anyways,(little hint about Stalinistic law-assumed quilty unless proven or needed otherwise)
To most people, I think first moonlanding is more important than first woman in space.

[–] buyens_bart 17 years ago

"Those three astronauts who died in that oxygene fire could have lived if soviets had told about the same kind of accident."
Which accident? I don't recall one with oxygen fire.

[–] BigAl42 17 years ago

Cosmonaut Valentin Bondarenko died in 1961 at the end of an extended solo isolation test in a pressure chamber. The test involved a high oxygen atmosphere - he was removing medical sensors with an alcohol swab and accidentally dropped one on an electric hotplate that had been used for cooking. He died within the day from extensive burns. The information was surpressed until the 1980's, with his photo remaining in many official group photo's long after his death. Even if this were known at the time, it is unlikely that NASA would have designed the Apollo capsule differently.

[–] senkisem 17 years ago

Leave the politics aside, educate yourself on space science, and face the facts: practically, the SU/Russia won the space race - they were the first in space [Sputnik 1, Layka, Gagarin, Tereskova, Leonov], on the Moon [too many to list] and around the Moon [turtles aboard Zond 5], on Venus [Veneras], on Mars [Mars 3] --- and they still have the world's most reliable rockets [variants of R-7] & spacecraft [Soyuz/Progress], and only the Russians know how to build and operate a space station [Mir & ISS]. (The Moon landing was a truly major step on a long road marked by mostly Soviet milestones.)

[–] cwoliver-1 16 years ago

senkisem; you consider this an unbiased assessment?

"The Moon landing was a truly major step on a long road marked by mostly Soviet milestones."

Such milestones are only valuable when both parties benefit from the knowledge gained. For example, the Wright brothers built on the milestones of others - i.e. information was shared. In what way did the Soviets share information on which the Americans built? Therefore the American's achievements were just as important and notable even though some may have occured after the Soviets.

Further, many of the milestones you note have little or nothing to do with achieving the American's stated goal; to place a man on the moon and return. What was the Soviet's stated goal? There was no stated goal.

And to use your logic, when a race car team has the fastest car, the best paint job, the best looking uniforms, the quickest pit crew, and so on, they automatically win. You can't win the race if you never cross the finish line.

Both the Americans and the Soviets had creditable programs, both could have succeeded in putting man on the moon, the Soviets failed to do so. Therefore their achievements were notable, but only notable nothing more.

"and only the Russians know how to build and operate a space station" Oh, please! What an ignorant statement.

[–] senkisem 16 years ago

""and only the Russians know how to build and operate a space station" Oh, please! What an ignorant statement."

If someone does not know the facts but thinks he/she does, that is pure ignorance.

Facts:
1. The USA wanted to build their space station [Freedom]
2. they were not even able to start with it
3. hence they invited the Russians [while getting training aboard the Russian MIR]
4. so now the core section of the ISS is practically the Russian MIR 2

Learn the facts, then criticize the others, please!

[–] cwoliver-1 16 years ago

senkisem;

The ISS is a continuation of what began as the U.S. Space Station Freedom, the funding for which was cut back severely. [Russia also faced serious cut backs which made a joint effort beneficial to both Russia and the US]. It represents a merger of Freedom with several other previously planned space stations: Russia's Mir 2, the planned European Columbus and Kibo, the Japanese Experiment Module. [Such a combined effort made more sense than did having four duplicative efforts].

The legal structure that regulates the space station is multi-layered. The primary layer establishing obligations and rights between the ISS partners is the Space Station Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA), an international treaty signed on January 28, 1998 by fifteen governments involved in the Space Station project. NASA is the designated manager of the ISS.

http://www.esa.int/esaHS/ESAH7O0VMOC_iss_0.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iss

"If someone does not know the facts but thinks he/she does, that is pure ignorance."

My point exactly. Now you know the facts.

"Learn the facts, then criticize the others, please!"

Good advice . . . you should follow it yourself.

[–] intertracer 16 years ago

This is indeed an absolute disgrace that no single russian film I've seen in the recent years stands even close in terms of impartially describing achievements of the opposite party. I'm saying this being a Russian.
Roots of such manifestations of hostility are probably out of scope here, so I believe the best thing we can all do is to calm down and not to escalate such hostility any further, whoever raises it. Unless we want to have the bi-polar world once again...
This is by all means a great movie featuring not only history, but also moral, bringing the two worlds together rather than splitting them apart.

[–] rusher-5 14 years ago

Russians are generally a nasty nation, not individuals- there are many bright Russians out there but when they all come together, you just start to wonder if there's another one such nation out there...

Russians don't know a thing about democracy, compassion etc. (and I speak about Russkies as a whole, not individuals). Russians can't think individually- that's why democracy will never work there. Russia has never been a democratic nation and it never will be... there'll always be Ivan the Terrible, Lenin, Stalin or Putin ruling the country...

Of course I'm Latvian and I'm biased but it's hard not to be biased given the fact that for 1000 years Russians have been seen by Latvians as savages from the East and every time they've come here, be it Ivan the Terrible, Peter I, Lenin, Stalin etc. thousands of people have been tortured and have died.

intertracer maybe is not like all of them but just as I said- individual Russians are ok- great scientists, artists etc. It's just that as a collective they are destructive and easily follow every insane maniac to rule their country. So there can't be no technological superiority in the long term. While they had Korolev all was great, when he died- the remaining collective was just too dumb and even now Russian tech is highly unreliable and just old junk... be it new Ladas or rockets...

[–] nakedgirl 7 years ago

did you cry when Layka died?