For
the last nine years, if America wanted to get an astronaut into space, we had
to hitch a ride with the Russians. However, in 1985, the American space program
was so competitive, the Soviets worried we could permanently leap-frog them if
we recovered their malfunctioning Salyut-7 space station. In what could be
dubbed the “Russian Apollo 13,” two cosmonauts were dispatched on an emergency
mission to repair or safely scuttle the station. While the circumstances of the
mission were blacked-out by the Soviet media at the time, they are now the heroic
stuff of Klim Shipenko’s big-budget, big-screen treatment, Salyut-7 (trailer
here),
which screens during the 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival.
In
the atheist USSR, seeing an angel during a space-walk is more than sufficient
to get Vladimir Fyodorov permanently grounded (it probably wouldn’t have gone
over so well with NASA either). Nevertheless, he is the best pure pilot
available to TsUP when a power failure sends Salyut-7 into a precarious rotation.
Fyodorov’s mission (which he duly accepts) will be to manually hard dock with
the space station, so mission engineer Viktor Alyokhin can restore power and
bring it under control. However, it is rotating faster than anyone at TsUP
estimated and water leaks shorted put most of the electricals.
Although
some of the Soviet authorities are depicted as loutish hard-liners, it is
probably a safe bet Salyut-7 would
never have been made in today’s Russia if it ended in failure. Nevertheless, if
you can overlook some propagandistic nostalgia for the old Soviet days, it is a
rather rousing ode to the daring spirit of space exploration. The effects are
also first-rate, capturing the awe of the galactic view of Earth in all its
glory.
Vladimir
Vdovichenkov is credibly square-jawed as the seasoned Fyodorov (based on
Vladimir Dzhanibekov) and Pavel Derevyanko is serviceable enough as the more
nebbish Alyokhin (modelled on Viktor Savinykh). Their comradery is matter-of-factly
convincing, but the scenes of their respective home-fronts are awkwardly
manipulative (you know one of them will have to have a pregnant wife). However,
probably the best work comes from Aleksandr Samoylenko as the veteran cosmonaut
now serving as flight director. He doesn’t quite have the fire of Ed Harris’s Gene
Kranz, but he is still notably intense and driven.