Space Tourists

Verzio FF In pursuit of their ultimate dream, multimillionaires are traveling to Kazakhstan to the remote, hidden rocket launch site Baikonur and accompanying training centre, Star City. Here, Soviet cosmonauts celebrated their achievements until Gorbachev pulled the plug on the space program in the...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Other Authors: Frei, Christian
Institution:Open Society Archives at Central European University
Language:Russian
English
Romanian
Published: Christian Frei Filmproduktionen GmbH 2009
Switzerland
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10891/osa:728a3467-ce90-4916-a7f0-a4ac8877b9d7
_version_ 1771404965690998786
author2 Frei, Christian
author_facet Frei, Christian
collection OSA Film Library
dateSpan 2009
description Verzio FF In pursuit of their ultimate dream, multimillionaires are traveling to Kazakhstan to the remote, hidden rocket launch site Baikonur and accompanying training centre, Star City. Here, Soviet cosmonauts celebrated their achievements until Gorbachev pulled the plug on the space program in the late 1980s. Nowadays, to finance trips into space, the Russians sell the third seat in the capsule to wealthy Americans, who with a ticket costing $20 million cover almost half of the cost. American businesswoman Anousheh Ansari is one of these travelers. Space Tourists shows how she prepares for the journey by Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station. In the meantime, Magnum photographer Jonas Bendiksen is searching for space debris for a photo series. The inhabitants of the neighboring, isolated villages on the steppes earn a little extra from the waste, use the titanium tanks as soup pans, and sell the rest to China, where it is used to make aluminum. The worlds of the cosmonauts and the shepherds hardly touch at all. With extraordinary access the film investigates the emotional oscillations of an expensive enterprise and questions the meaning and boundaries of the human spirit and our hunger for adventure and discovery — and the price we are willing to pay for it.
genre libraryUnit
geographic Switzerland
id bulk_E27BA734-F805-48C7-B919-472F72BC8756
institution Open Society Archives at Central European University
language Russian
English
Romanian
publishDate 2009
publisher Christian Frei Filmproduktionen GmbH
Switzerland
spellingShingle Space Tourists
[Documentary film]
title Space Tourists
topic [Documentary film]
url http://hdl.handle.net/10891/osa:728a3467-ce90-4916-a7f0-a4ac8877b9d7