0:00:18 > 0:00:22One morning in April, I took a train from Moscow to a town
0:00:22 > 0:00:24called Gagarin.
0:00:37 > 0:00:41This is where the popular version of how the Russians conquered space begins,
0:00:45 > 0:00:52in the otherwise non-descript town they've named after their hero.
0:00:56 > 0:01:03On April 12th 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to go into space.
0:01:05 > 0:01:11It was the height of the Cold War. No-one could say it wasn't a triumph for communism.
0:01:11 > 0:01:16It was a new emotion which is impossible, I think, to describe in detail. It was...
0:01:16 > 0:01:17HE INHALES
0:01:21 > 0:01:25Something really great for everybody happened,
0:01:25 > 0:01:32and perhaps a little hope that new times started from this day.
0:01:37 > 0:01:41But all this razzmatazz tells only half the story.
0:01:43 > 0:01:48Finding out about the other half, the unspoken half,
0:01:48 > 0:01:51took me on a strange journey,
0:01:51 > 0:01:54a journey into a Russian world
0:01:54 > 0:02:00where mysticism and science merge, and nothing is certain, not even death.
0:02:00 > 0:02:04- So their heads are down underneath there, are they?- Yes.
0:02:04 > 0:02:08It doesn't make sense to die because it's not pleasant, it's not nice,
0:02:08 > 0:02:11nothing good happens out of it, at least for the person who dies.
0:02:15 > 0:02:18What links the two is a dream of the future...
0:02:21 > 0:02:24..in which science would make us all immortal...
0:02:28 > 0:02:29..and supermen would rule the universe.
0:02:29 > 0:02:34# I feel like I'm knocking on heaven's door
0:02:37 > 0:02:42# Knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door
0:02:44 > 0:02:46# Knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door... #
0:02:47 > 0:02:51It was not where I expected to start a story on space.
0:02:51 > 0:02:54But this is the only place where you can find a statue in the main street
0:02:54 > 0:02:58to the man some people say is the true father
0:02:58 > 0:03:00of space travel in Russia.
0:03:02 > 0:03:04No, not him.
0:03:04 > 0:03:09This man, a 19th-century sage called Nikolai Fedorov,
0:03:09 > 0:03:13and the inspiration of a uniquely Russian view of the world, called cosmism.
0:03:16 > 0:03:19- Alexander!- Hello!
0:03:20 > 0:03:21What's that?
0:03:21 > 0:03:22Show it off.
0:03:22 > 0:03:26IN RUSSIAN:
0:03:48 > 0:03:51Alexander Boiko is a cosmist.
0:03:52 > 0:03:56Some of the movement's early heroes adorn the walls of the town.
0:03:58 > 0:04:04The core of their idea was that the whole universe is alive, and man is inseparable from it.
0:04:27 > 0:04:30And this is now.
0:04:32 > 0:04:37The current queen of cosmism held court, we discovered,
0:04:37 > 0:04:39in a children's library.
0:04:43 > 0:04:46Her name is Anastasia Gacheva.
0:04:49 > 0:04:54That's Fedorov, and would you believe it, he came from a long line
0:04:54 > 0:04:58not of Fedorovs, but of princes called Gagarin.
0:05:00 > 0:05:03IN RUSSIAN:
0:05:27 > 0:05:32And it was the wide horizons around that oak tree, said Anastasia,
0:05:32 > 0:05:36which first inspired Fedorov to think beyond the limit.
0:06:09 > 0:06:10Wow.
0:06:11 > 0:06:16'Anastasia said she had something she wanted to show me.
0:06:16 > 0:06:21'Not old documents about Fedorov as I expected, but a 50-year-old front page
0:06:21 > 0:06:25'announcing that the Soviet Union had just put a man into space.'
0:06:25 > 0:06:31"The captain of the first spaceship, it's ours, Soviet."
0:06:31 > 0:06:36"A great victory for thought and hard work."
0:06:38 > 0:06:41"The world applauds Yuri Gagarin."
0:07:10 > 0:07:13YURI GAGARIN IN RUSSIAN:
0:07:24 > 0:07:28Anastasia said she had a friend she thought I should meet.
0:07:31 > 0:07:35He was hard to miss, even in the Moscow traffic.
0:07:35 > 0:07:40His name was Valery Borisov, and apparently he knew everything
0:07:40 > 0:07:43there was to know about Fedorov's domestic life.
0:08:00 > 0:08:02But Fedorov led a double life,
0:08:02 > 0:08:06working in places like this, living like a pauper.
0:08:16 > 0:08:19And he ate like a saint,
0:08:19 > 0:08:22said Valery, just bread, tea and water.
0:08:49 > 0:08:54Devout Christians like Fedorov faced a dilemma in those days.
0:08:54 > 0:08:56Outside the churches,
0:08:56 > 0:09:01society hovered on the cusp between ancient and modern.
0:09:01 > 0:09:06Most of them feared that science would destroy their religion.
0:09:07 > 0:09:12Fedorov's genius was to enlist it in support.
0:09:15 > 0:09:19Valery had invited me to visit him in his garden.
0:09:25 > 0:09:30It turned out to be less of an organic creation, more of a dream world.
0:09:51 > 0:09:56In fact, most of the things in his cosmic garden looked dead.
0:10:03 > 0:10:08Was it just the cruelty of April, I wondered, or a symbol?
0:10:38 > 0:10:43Sublime - but what had it got to do with space, I asked?
0:11:04 > 0:11:09GUITARS PLAY MOURNFUL TUNE
0:11:12 > 0:11:16Don't think cosmism has died its own death in the modern world.
0:11:18 > 0:11:24I was on my way to meet someone who had a business plan for eternal life.
0:11:30 > 0:11:34SPEECH OBSCURED BY RUSSIAN SINGING
0:11:38 > 0:11:41Not exactly a gateway to paradise.
0:11:45 > 0:11:47Hi. Hello.
0:11:47 > 0:11:50'The man who greeted me was called Danila Medvedev.
0:11:50 > 0:11:53'His group call themselves Transhumanists.
0:11:55 > 0:11:58'They believe they can do what Fedorov promised.
0:11:58 > 0:12:01'Live forever thanks to science.'
0:12:01 > 0:12:06This is a temporary dry ice storage box,
0:12:06 > 0:12:08or cooling box, can be used for that as well.
0:12:08 > 0:12:13- You put a body in for how long? - A couple of months we use this one.
0:12:13 > 0:12:15This is a small one, so we give the...
0:12:15 > 0:12:19You know, those patients who stored only their head or a brain here.
0:12:19 > 0:12:22What, so you get the body and cut their head off, do you?
0:12:22 > 0:12:26- Yes.- Yeah. I see. So is there one in there now?
0:12:26 > 0:12:30Yes. There are a couple of patients there and they have been here for five years.
0:12:30 > 0:12:33- Oh, really?- Yes. - OK. Is it possible to look?
0:12:33 > 0:12:34Yes.
0:12:41 > 0:12:45- So, the heads are down underneath there somewhere?- Yes.
0:12:45 > 0:12:48They are.
0:12:48 > 0:12:54Beyond that is liquid nitrogen, and submerged in liquid nitrogen are metal containers
0:12:54 > 0:12:57for the patient's heads or brains inside.
0:12:57 > 0:13:00Confident fellow, to call them patients!
0:13:00 > 0:13:04Most people tend to feel that if something is impossible today,
0:13:04 > 0:13:06it will never be possible in the future.
0:13:06 > 0:13:08We have the opposite way of thinking.
0:13:08 > 0:13:13We think that some technologies,
0:13:13 > 0:13:15some different things we want to happen
0:13:15 > 0:13:20can basically be taken for granted. Just not now, in the future.
0:13:22 > 0:13:26Outside, it was like a set from some dystopic movie.
0:13:26 > 0:13:31He'd come to cryology, he told me, from investment banking.
0:13:32 > 0:13:34What do you want to be immortal for?
0:13:34 > 0:13:36I just don't want to die.
0:13:36 > 0:13:41It doesn't make sense to die, because it's not pleasant, it's not nice,
0:13:41 > 0:13:45nothing good happens out of it, at least for the person who dies.
0:13:45 > 0:13:48- Wouldn't you get bored? - No. I wouldn't get bored so much
0:13:48 > 0:13:53that it would make eternal life bad on balance.
0:13:53 > 0:13:59And now we store the patients here in this container.
0:13:59 > 0:14:05But bodies to Danila are already yesterday's technology.
0:14:05 > 0:14:10His version of Fedorov's dream is to upload his identity into a computer file
0:14:10 > 0:14:13and live forever in cyberspace.
0:14:13 > 0:14:17Transhumanists don't care about having a body, they care about becoming post-humans.
0:14:17 > 0:14:19As we get closer and closer
0:14:19 > 0:14:21to actually becoming post-humans,
0:14:21 > 0:14:23uploading ourselves into computers,
0:14:23 > 0:14:29then it doesn't actually matter where your brain resides, because
0:14:29 > 0:14:35it's run inside a computer and it doesn't matter if the computer is inside the moon or inside the Earth.
0:14:35 > 0:14:40Somehow I felt Fedorov might have had something more spiritual in mind.
0:14:40 > 0:14:43I think the general idea is we are
0:14:43 > 0:14:47following his plan that science find a way to deal with death,
0:14:47 > 0:14:49and we're doing that.
0:14:49 > 0:14:54Would there still be good and evil in your futuristic world?
0:14:54 > 0:14:58I don't think that if you have sufficient intelligence you can have evil,
0:14:58 > 0:15:04because usually evil happening in the world is the result
0:15:04 > 0:15:07of either lack of intelligence or lack of other resources.
0:15:07 > 0:15:13So smart people who have healthy brains,
0:15:13 > 0:15:16they don't commit bad things if they have enough resources.
0:15:16 > 0:15:21So it would be a world for rich, healthy people, would it?
0:15:21 > 0:15:25It would be a world of rich, healthy people, not for rich, healthy people.
0:15:25 > 0:15:29'That's revisionism for you...'
0:15:33 > 0:15:36I headed back into the 19th century,
0:15:36 > 0:15:40to the great Rumyantsev Library over the road from the Kremlin.
0:15:41 > 0:15:47As a special favour, Anastasia had arranged for me to be taken up to the very top,
0:15:47 > 0:15:52through the roof rafters to the balcony, from which Fedorov had contemplated the heavens.
0:16:05 > 0:16:07What a view.
0:16:07 > 0:16:10No wonder his thoughts turned to space travel.
0:16:23 > 0:16:27A sort of mystical mission control.
0:16:27 > 0:16:32Fedorov, it was emerging, had an obsession with controlling things, very Russian.
0:17:04 > 0:17:07We went down to the reading room.
0:17:07 > 0:17:11For 20 years, Fedorov worked here as a senior librarian.
0:17:11 > 0:17:16Today's librarian brought some rare old papers out
0:17:16 > 0:17:18from the vault for me to see.
0:17:28 > 0:17:29'The common task.
0:17:29 > 0:17:34'That was what he called the search for eternal life through science.'
0:17:34 > 0:17:36Gosh, I can't read it.
0:17:36 > 0:17:38But I think I can read that.
0:17:41 > 0:17:43Universal...
0:17:44 > 0:17:46That's resurrection...
0:17:46 > 0:17:50Too hard for me. My friend Theresa did rather better.
0:17:50 > 0:17:54This line which separates the two parts of the join
0:17:54 > 0:17:59seems to say, "The transition from blindness and lack of ability
0:17:59 > 0:18:05"to be in charge of your own destiny, to self-direction,
0:18:05 > 0:18:08"self-regulation and self-government."
0:18:08 > 0:18:10And when you cross that line,
0:18:10 > 0:18:14then you're in the ideal world where you have the resurrection of everybody,
0:18:14 > 0:18:16the unification of worlds.
0:18:16 > 0:18:19Fedorov wrote very little down.
0:18:19 > 0:18:24What makes him significant is the influence he had on other great thinkers.
0:18:35 > 0:18:39This is actually a letter written by Dostoevsky,
0:18:39 > 0:18:45and it's written to Fedorov's pupil, and it says here,
0:18:45 > 0:18:47"I have just become acquainted
0:18:47 > 0:18:49"with the ideas of this great thinker
0:18:49 > 0:18:54"and I would very much appreciate that you could convey to him how much
0:18:54 > 0:18:57"his ideas have absolutely enthralled me."
0:18:57 > 0:19:00Then he's saying that, "When I read these ideas
0:19:00 > 0:19:03"and when I understand what they mean,
0:19:03 > 0:19:06"I feel as though they're completely part of me,
0:19:06 > 0:19:09"that they are close to my heart, they could be mine."
0:19:09 > 0:19:11Dostoevsky.
0:19:11 > 0:19:14That's Dostoevsky, about Fedorov's philosophy and ideas.
0:19:14 > 0:19:20But the person who injected those ideas into the bloodstream of Russian science
0:19:20 > 0:19:22was a near-deaf teenager
0:19:22 > 0:19:24who came here to study because he couldn't keep up at school.
0:19:26 > 0:19:29His name was Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.
0:19:41 > 0:19:44For three years, Fedorov helped the young Tsiolkovsky
0:19:44 > 0:19:47choose books to improve his mind.
0:20:12 > 0:20:17This is the park in Moscow that celebrates the official story of space.
0:20:17 > 0:20:24Pride of place among the steel and granite memories goes to that same deaf boy, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.
0:20:30 > 0:20:36The kids must think he thrived under the regime that erected this monument, but it simply isn't true.
0:20:36 > 0:20:42For most of his life, Tsiolkovsky lived in the sticks, unrecognised, unrewarded.
0:20:42 > 0:20:47And there he would probably have stayed but for one extraordinary insight.
0:20:53 > 0:20:56I was looking for an article about rocket propulsion
0:20:56 > 0:21:00that Tsiolkovsky had published in the very year that Fedorov died.
0:21:02 > 0:21:05This is why it's famous.
0:21:05 > 0:21:08Look at the date. 1903.
0:21:08 > 0:21:10May.
0:21:10 > 0:21:16An article published in an obscure science journal in Russian.
0:21:16 > 0:21:22Full of calculations for deciding how much you need to
0:21:22 > 0:21:26propel the rocket, what speed you need to get to, what fuel you need
0:21:26 > 0:21:28to get out of the Earth's atmosphere.
0:21:30 > 0:21:38And amazingly, he wrote that seven months before the Wright Brothers had even flown a yard.
0:21:38 > 0:21:41But virtually no-one took any notice.
0:21:45 > 0:21:50To find out why, I made my way to a dacha outside Moscow.
0:21:55 > 0:21:59Inside was Alexander Urnov, grandson of the man who helped save
0:21:59 > 0:22:03Tsiolkovsky's stroke of genius from oblivion.
0:22:03 > 0:22:04Hi.
0:22:04 > 0:22:06Morning. Would you like some?
0:22:06 > 0:22:08I'd love some. That'd be great.
0:22:08 > 0:22:11- Thanks.- This is just my grandfather.
0:22:11 > 0:22:13Let's see.
0:22:16 > 0:22:20- And this is your grandfather as well, is it?- Yes.
0:22:20 > 0:22:23In those days, Boris Vorobyev was quite a man about town.
0:22:26 > 0:22:28He lived in this house off Pushkin Square.
0:22:28 > 0:22:31He was into every new trend.
0:22:31 > 0:22:34We lived in the same apartment.
0:22:34 > 0:22:37His room was called Dedovo Komnata -
0:22:37 > 0:22:39grandfather's room,
0:22:39 > 0:22:41and we came, my brother and me,
0:22:41 > 0:22:46from time to time, to him, and got him a lot of questions.
0:22:48 > 0:22:53As the transport revolution advanced, his grandfather
0:22:53 > 0:22:56decided to launch a magazine specialising in aviation.
0:22:56 > 0:23:01Somebody said to him that there is one dreamer who thinks about
0:23:01 > 0:23:03exploration of the space and flights to the moon.
0:23:03 > 0:23:07He bought him a letter inviting him to write something for his journal.
0:23:07 > 0:23:11And Tsiolkovsky wrote a very detailed paper
0:23:11 > 0:23:17saying that yes, he has materials, he has scientific works
0:23:17 > 0:23:21and about explorations of space, not only aviation,
0:23:21 > 0:23:24but much larger, universe, I would say.
0:23:24 > 0:23:28Editorial board will shock this person, he's thinking about
0:23:28 > 0:23:31exploration of universe, because at that time,
0:23:31 > 0:23:37it seems to be much more important problems on the Earth.
0:23:37 > 0:23:39Indeed there were.
0:23:39 > 0:23:43Russia was entering the death throes of its imperial age.
0:23:43 > 0:23:49But the paper was published, and Tsiolkovsky wrote to thank Alexander's grandfather.
0:23:49 > 0:23:53This letter from Tsiolkovsky started with the words that...
0:24:07 > 0:24:13This person is speaking like a prophet, and it's true, he became a prophet, actually.
0:24:16 > 0:24:20Once again, his article went unnoticed, submerged
0:24:20 > 0:24:23beneath the turmoil of revolution.
0:24:23 > 0:24:27But with peace came a brief utopian period,
0:24:27 > 0:24:31when to dream of new worlds
0:24:31 > 0:24:34seemed perfectly normal.
0:24:34 > 0:24:36This period of the '20s,
0:24:36 > 0:24:39starting from the revolution, it was a spirit of the time.
0:24:39 > 0:24:41You know,
0:24:41 > 0:24:44people...
0:24:44 > 0:24:50were enthusiastic about changing of everything.
0:24:53 > 0:24:59This is one of the places the intellectuals of the new age used to meet.
0:24:59 > 0:25:04An arts centre then, and an arts centre of sorts now.
0:25:10 > 0:25:14The band call themselves Cosmis, retro-utopians.
0:25:20 > 0:25:25But back in the '20s, the place was full of the real thing,
0:25:25 > 0:25:26artists, musicians, writers,
0:25:26 > 0:25:31poets and filmmakers who found the idea of cosmism intoxicating.
0:25:35 > 0:25:41They queued round the block when Aelita, Queen of Mars came out in 1924.
0:25:41 > 0:25:44For example, very rich people and very famous people,
0:25:44 > 0:25:49they supported Bolsheviks, just spent money, funding, etc,
0:25:49 > 0:25:54because everybody would like change what we see now here...
0:25:54 > 0:25:57into something different.
0:26:00 > 0:26:06So people were going to make trips to unknown places to discover something.
0:26:06 > 0:26:10It was great enthusiasm.
0:26:10 > 0:26:14And it was an atmosphere in which Tsiolkovsky would at last prosper.
0:26:20 > 0:26:23- Let me see that.- It's his grandson.
0:26:23 > 0:26:26Oh, really? Tsiolkovsky and his grandson.
0:26:26 > 0:26:28- Yeah.- Gosh.
0:26:28 > 0:26:33- That's a rare photo.- This is unique. - What does it say on the back?
0:26:33 > 0:26:38Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, 71, with his grandson.
0:26:40 > 0:26:43In his old age, his ideas for space travel
0:26:43 > 0:26:46were finally being taken seriously.
0:26:50 > 0:26:53But Utopia was over.
0:26:53 > 0:26:57He cannot be a philosopher because it was a period
0:26:57 > 0:27:01when we had only one philosophy, Marxist philosophy,
0:27:01 > 0:27:04so you should be very cautious.
0:27:04 > 0:27:07Either you became very famous,
0:27:08 > 0:27:11it means that Stalin will look at it positively,
0:27:11 > 0:27:14or you just will be imprisoned and killed.
0:27:16 > 0:27:17Tsiolkovsky didn't care.
0:27:17 > 0:27:20He knew he was near the end anyway,
0:27:20 > 0:27:24but he did want a state pension to look after his wife.
0:27:24 > 0:27:28Somebody gave him an idea to write a letter directly to Stalin.
0:27:28 > 0:27:32And it seems to be he did it, and Stalin answered.
0:27:32 > 0:27:37And since this answer was made from Stalin directly,
0:27:37 > 0:27:40even Stalin wrote in Russian...
0:27:44 > 0:27:46So he got his pension,
0:27:46 > 0:27:50a medal, and two years later, a grand state funeral.
0:28:01 > 0:28:06The space establishment is celebrating Cosmonauts' Day.
0:28:09 > 0:28:14Many of these people have spent their entire working lives in total secrecy, making rockets
0:28:14 > 0:28:18but to launch warheads more often than men.
0:28:26 > 0:28:31This was their annual happy hour celebrating their heroes,
0:28:33 > 0:28:36though not quite in the way I was expecting.
0:28:43 > 0:28:47I saw Georgi Gretchko in the audience.
0:28:47 > 0:28:49He was one of the first Russians to walk in space.
0:28:49 > 0:28:52He told me something intriguing.
0:28:52 > 0:28:55When he was young, many of the books by the man they now called
0:28:55 > 0:28:58the father of space travel were virtually banned.
0:29:17 > 0:29:20And why was that?
0:29:46 > 0:29:48# Baby, do you understand me now?
0:29:49 > 0:29:52# Sometimes I feel a little mad
0:29:52 > 0:29:55# But don't you know that
0:29:55 > 0:29:59# No-one alive can always be an angel
0:29:59 > 0:30:01# When things go wrong
0:30:01 > 0:30:03# I seem to be bad
0:30:03 > 0:30:08# I'm just a soul whose intentions are good
0:30:09 > 0:30:10# Oh, Lord
0:30:10 > 0:30:13# Please don't let me be misunderstood. #
0:30:13 > 0:30:20This is the city where Tsiolkovsky lived for most of his life,
0:30:20 > 0:30:23fretting about money and the future of mankind.
0:30:27 > 0:30:31I'd arranged to meet his great-grandson Sergei Samburov.
0:30:31 > 0:30:35Understandably perhaps, he wanted to meet at the great Museum of Space
0:30:35 > 0:30:39they've built in Tsiolkovsky's honour.
0:30:43 > 0:30:48Tsiolkovsky died before a scrap of this stuff was built, of course.
0:30:48 > 0:30:50But the myth is everything.
0:30:50 > 0:30:53Tsiolkovsky is establishment now,
0:30:53 > 0:30:59and so up to a point is his great-grandson, who has a good job in the prestigious space industry.
0:31:01 > 0:31:07After a few minutes looking around, he said there was something he wanted to show me,
0:31:07 > 0:31:09in the park along the road.
0:31:09 > 0:31:10What is this place?
0:31:17 > 0:31:21Monument to an incorrect philosopher.
0:31:22 > 0:31:26I asked Sergei which would be most important to him -
0:31:26 > 0:31:29his rockets, or his blueprint for the human race?
0:31:49 > 0:31:54This house became a shrine for every Russian cosmonaut.
0:31:54 > 0:31:57This is where Tsiolkovsky sat,
0:31:57 > 0:32:03and where, as cosmonauts who are going into space, as a special favour, they're allowed to sit.
0:32:33 > 0:32:34Tsiolkovsky, unlike Fedorov,
0:32:34 > 0:32:39never stopped writing on whatever engaged his inquisitive mind.
0:32:39 > 0:32:44But a recurrent theme was how to save humanity when the planet died.
0:34:15 > 0:34:19This is a man who would have fitted the bill.
0:34:19 > 0:34:26The old Cold Warriors were paying their respects to the engineer who led them into space.
0:34:31 > 0:34:34On the face of it, Sergei Korolev was like them,
0:34:34 > 0:34:37shunning the limelight to serve the state.
0:34:51 > 0:34:53But would he tell us his name?
0:35:08 > 0:35:10I went to see Korolev's daughter
0:35:10 > 0:35:15who lived on the 14th floor of a smart block of flats in the centre of town.
0:35:18 > 0:35:21She sat down to show me the family photographs.
0:35:49 > 0:35:53Korolev and his friends had caught the space bug
0:35:53 > 0:35:55that was sweeping Russia.
0:35:55 > 0:35:59But their work had nothing to do with the Soviet state.
0:36:16 > 0:36:18The turning point came
0:36:18 > 0:36:21when a shrewd general spotted the military potential.
0:36:21 > 0:36:24They got a small grant to rent the cellar of that building.
0:36:39 > 0:36:41The half-truths of hindsight.
0:36:41 > 0:36:46What actually happened was their military protector fell from grace.
0:36:46 > 0:36:49And on June 27th 1938,
0:36:49 > 0:36:55the Secret Police turned up at the Korolevs' flat on the top floor of this building.
0:37:29 > 0:37:32Did he think he was going to be executed?
0:37:38 > 0:37:44One minute a bright young hope for the future,
0:37:44 > 0:37:48the next, hard labour, in one of the worst camps in the Gulag.
0:38:05 > 0:38:08The man who saved his life, ironically,
0:38:08 > 0:38:13was the Secret Police boss, Lavrentii Beria, on the right.
0:38:13 > 0:38:19He saw that using the state's best scientists to break rocks
0:38:19 > 0:38:22or build railways wasn't exactly in the national interest.
0:38:22 > 0:38:24So he had him transferred to Moscow.
0:38:24 > 0:38:27I found the place where he was sent,
0:38:27 > 0:38:30here on Radio Street.
0:38:30 > 0:38:35That's the building, a sort of prison laboratory for brainy traitors.
0:38:35 > 0:38:38The plaque says that the famous aircraft designer Andrei Tupolev
0:38:38 > 0:38:41worked here for years.
0:38:41 > 0:38:45What it doesn't say is that he too was a prisoner,
0:38:45 > 0:38:47charged with wrecking state enterprises.
0:38:47 > 0:38:53The only fresh air Korolev got then was up there on the roof.
0:38:53 > 0:38:56Now he stands in the park, showered in Soviet honours,
0:38:56 > 0:38:58but deep down, I wondered,
0:38:58 > 0:39:01had this supremely practical man
0:39:01 > 0:39:05shared any of the incorrect tendencies of his granite companion?
0:39:38 > 0:39:43But even if the only immortality he dreamed of was fame,
0:39:43 > 0:39:47that great day still had a bitter taste.
0:40:16 > 0:40:20And Korolev wasn't the only person with mixed feelings.
0:40:20 > 0:40:24Fedorov's followers still have their eyes on a bigger prize.
0:40:47 > 0:40:51In the optimistic aftermath of Gagarin's flight,
0:40:51 > 0:40:56building accelerated on a new town in the Siberian forest.
0:40:56 > 0:40:59It's called Akademgorodok.
0:40:59 > 0:41:02It was built as a place for scientists
0:41:02 > 0:41:08to live as one big community, as a place for generating ideas.
0:41:08 > 0:41:12They wanted to create a paradise
0:41:12 > 0:41:19for scientists, so that they would feel safe and comfortable here.
0:41:19 > 0:41:24Artem was taking me to ISRICA, a research institute
0:41:24 > 0:41:28where the DNA of Tsiolkovsky and Fedorov has survived everything.
0:41:28 > 0:41:32- Do you know much about ISRICA itself?- I know what my mum's been doing.- What's that?
0:41:32 > 0:41:37She's been trying to figure out ways
0:41:37 > 0:41:40of distant communicating between
0:41:40 > 0:41:47the human mind and, er,
0:41:47 > 0:41:49other cosmic consciousnesses
0:41:49 > 0:41:53in the universe.
0:41:53 > 0:41:56Gosh, I see, so how to communicate
0:41:56 > 0:41:59from someone on Earth
0:41:59 > 0:42:03to some sort of being elsewhere.
0:42:03 > 0:42:05Right. Right.
0:42:12 > 0:42:17His mother and the boss, Alexander Trofimov, were in the middle of an experiment.
0:42:21 > 0:42:24On my right, a large aluminium wall.
0:42:24 > 0:42:28In front of it, a technician monitoring brainwaves.
0:42:28 > 0:42:31Their theory is that objects
0:42:32 > 0:42:35give out information about themselves.
0:42:35 > 0:42:39They've placed one inside what they call the transmission zone.
0:42:43 > 0:42:46And there is the receiver.
0:43:45 > 0:43:49They call the chamber that Anton sat in a Kozyrev Mirror,
0:43:49 > 0:43:54named after an astrophysicist who spent 11 years in the Gulag.
0:43:54 > 0:43:58Cut off from other scientists,
0:43:58 > 0:44:01he developed his own unorthodox theories.
0:44:01 > 0:44:06One was that all cosmic matter is ceaselessly communicating with itself.
0:44:06 > 0:44:10And what they believe here is that laser beams
0:44:10 > 0:44:13and anti-magnetic chambers like this
0:44:13 > 0:44:17help them tune into that information network.
0:44:19 > 0:44:23One of their heroes is Vladimir Vernadsky,
0:44:23 > 0:44:28a contemporary of Tsiolkovsky who said there was a third dimension of the cosmos,
0:44:28 > 0:44:30beyond things and living creatures,
0:44:30 > 0:44:34which he called a noosphere or sphere of the mind.
0:44:36 > 0:44:39And that, say this branch of the cosmists,
0:44:39 > 0:44:42is where to find immortality.
0:44:42 > 0:44:47The man I needed to see was Alexander's partner,
0:44:47 > 0:44:52Vlail Kaznacheev, the current guru of cosmism.
0:44:53 > 0:44:58He's now in his 80s and too frail to come to the laboratory.
0:44:58 > 0:45:01But he welcomed us into his house,
0:45:01 > 0:45:05and began to explain how cosmism had evolved.
0:45:51 > 0:45:57Let's make a disc for concentration on two colours.
0:45:57 > 0:46:00'I thought I'd better give it a try myself.
0:46:00 > 0:46:04'They tested my reactions. They measured my cosmic aura.'
0:46:04 > 0:46:07All of your parameters are normal.
0:46:07 > 0:46:12- Green shows normal. - 'And then I went into the mirrors.'
0:46:14 > 0:46:19Make a pause, make a stop,
0:46:19 > 0:46:22and just put yourself
0:46:22 > 0:46:25to relax, relaxation.
0:46:27 > 0:46:30Say hello to this information system
0:46:30 > 0:46:32and find inside yourself
0:46:32 > 0:46:35what are you looking for.
0:46:35 > 0:46:38And find the answers inside.
0:46:38 > 0:46:41Just sit here and make some questions
0:46:41 > 0:46:44that you can ask this system,
0:46:44 > 0:46:47with help of mind of the universe.
0:46:47 > 0:46:53- Make this conversation with universal mind.- OK.- OK.
0:46:53 > 0:46:55- See you later.- See you later.
0:47:16 > 0:47:19Let's finish this contact.
0:47:19 > 0:47:21- Well, it was peaceful.- Yeah.
0:47:21 > 0:47:23I knew it.
0:47:44 > 0:47:48Taisiya, with years of practice and faith,
0:47:48 > 0:47:50had much better results.
0:47:50 > 0:47:52She showed me the record she kept
0:47:52 > 0:47:56of the images that had flooded into her head inside the mirror.
0:48:19 > 0:48:22I'm beginning to get the idea.
0:48:22 > 0:48:24We're talking close encounters here.
0:48:44 > 0:48:46And that is cosmism today.
0:48:46 > 0:48:50Man inextricably bound up in the universe
0:48:50 > 0:48:54whether he travels through it, or stays on Earth.
0:49:40 > 0:49:43Whatever you think of the dreamers,
0:49:43 > 0:49:48you can't fault the scientific credentials of Alexander Urnov and the Lebedev Institute.
0:49:48 > 0:49:51Portraits of Nobel prizes...
0:49:51 > 0:49:55Look at that wall lined with Nobel prizewinners,
0:49:55 > 0:49:57who've earned their spurs here.
0:49:57 > 0:50:01Alexander is a solar physicist working at the cutting edge.
0:50:01 > 0:50:05And there on the surface of the sun these cosmic questions
0:50:05 > 0:50:07are not thought crazy.
0:50:07 > 0:50:11- What are we looking at here?- We see how alive the solar corona is.
0:50:11 > 0:50:15- Yeah.- I can show you another example.
0:50:17 > 0:50:22An international satellite started to explore the sun
0:50:22 > 0:50:26and they saw the structure of solar corona.
0:50:26 > 0:50:31They start to speak, people start to speak, the solar corona is alive.
0:50:31 > 0:50:34What do you mean when you say alive?
0:50:34 > 0:50:38Well, not alive. This is I think one of the questions in modern science
0:50:38 > 0:50:42which is in the frontier.
0:50:42 > 0:50:45His words felt like a blessing on my whole journey.
0:50:45 > 0:50:48But he hadn't finished.
0:50:48 > 0:50:51Fedorov, formulated, so great,
0:50:51 > 0:50:55so fantastic, and a huge idea,
0:50:55 > 0:50:58which I cannot compare with anything else.
0:50:58 > 0:51:04What is the name, or if somebody thinks different,
0:51:04 > 0:51:07he have to correct me?
0:51:07 > 0:51:12What is anything else most important for human being as an answer,
0:51:12 > 0:51:16on the question - "what is the sense of your life?"
0:51:16 > 0:51:19And his idea helps to answer this question.
0:51:19 > 0:51:23The development of knowledge which science gives you
0:51:23 > 0:51:27helps to make you immortal.
0:51:27 > 0:51:31That is, I think, absolutely beautiful.
0:51:31 > 0:51:35I don't know anything more beautiful, speaking about ideas.
0:51:47 > 0:51:51It was time for my pilgrimage to the hometown
0:51:51 > 0:51:56of a carpenter's son who unwittingly fulfilled Fedorov's prediction.
0:52:10 > 0:52:15In the town's stadium, they were starting the Annual Gagarin Games.
0:52:15 > 0:52:17Apparently this was the sort of fun that young Yuri had
0:52:17 > 0:52:19before Playstations,
0:52:19 > 0:52:24television, mobile phones.
0:52:25 > 0:52:26I bet.
0:52:31 > 0:52:33That woman, someone told me,
0:52:33 > 0:52:36was Yuri Gagarin's favourite niece, Tamara.
0:52:37 > 0:52:41I made a date to meet her at the family house.
0:53:22 > 0:53:25Young Yuri went off to technical college,
0:53:25 > 0:53:29got married and seemed to be doing well as some sort of test pilot.
0:53:29 > 0:53:34Back here, they had no idea what he was really up to.
0:54:53 > 0:54:55They celebrate it still, that moment
0:54:55 > 0:54:59when the Soviet Union excelled America.
0:55:05 > 0:55:08But it didn't last long.
0:55:08 > 0:55:12Within a decade, America was overhauling them in space,
0:55:12 > 0:55:14and Gagarin was dead,
0:55:14 > 0:55:16killed in a senseless air crash
0:55:16 > 0:55:18that left the nation distraught.
0:55:50 > 0:55:5550 years on, Gagarin has found a sort of immortality,
0:55:55 > 0:55:59forever young, forever smiling.
0:55:59 > 0:56:04All over Russia, churches have been handed back to Orthodox priests.
0:56:04 > 0:56:08But here, they worship different gods.
0:56:57 > 0:57:01This is the village where Yuri Gagarin was actually born.
0:57:01 > 0:57:05When he was seven, Nazi armies overran the place.
0:57:05 > 0:57:11I was told there was someone in the graveyard who'd been his pal when they were boys.
0:57:11 > 0:57:13And thus at the end,
0:57:13 > 0:57:17I learned of the real miracle, that Yuri Gagarin
0:57:17 > 0:57:21had grown old enough to fly into space at all.
0:57:37 > 0:57:39The hammer, he said,
0:57:39 > 0:57:42was for smashing the casings off the explosive heads.
0:58:09 > 0:58:14# There's a starman waiting in the sky
0:58:14 > 0:58:16# He'd like to come and meet us
0:58:16 > 0:58:19# But he thinks he'd blow our minds
0:58:19 > 0:58:23# There's a starman waiting in the sky
0:58:23 > 0:58:26# He's told us not to blow it
0:58:26 > 0:58:28# Cos he knows it's all worthwhile
0:58:28 > 0:58:30# He told me
0:58:30 > 0:58:33# Let the children lose it
0:58:33 > 0:58:34# Let the children use it
0:58:34 > 0:58:38# Let all the children boogie. #
0:58:39 > 0:58:42Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:42 > 0:58:45E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk