Watch The Movie That Sparked The Russian Space Race In 1920.
A recent article in Wired turned me on to the fact that while the American space race first began in the ’60s, Russians were holding contests for the first spaceship way back in 1920.
What’s even cooler is that public interest was largely fueled by the movie adaptation of a popular Russian book at the time titled Aelita: Zakat Marsa or Aelita: Sunset of Mars. Aelita is considered one of the first true feature-length sci-fi films, inspiring works such as Flash Gordon and Metropolis and is noted for its glamorous costume design and use of special effects for the time period (1924).
The film is silent but well worth your time if you are one of those film geeks, which most of us are. Watch it below in 9 parts courtesy Youtube!
