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...
| Other Authors: | |
|---|---|
| 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 |
| Summary: | 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. |
|---|---|
| Published: | 2009 |