A.

Bowdoin Van Riper | Special In-Depth Section

From Gagarin to Armageddon:

Soviet-American Relations in the Cold War Space Epic

A. Bowdoin Van Riper

Social and International Studies Program
Southern Polytechnic State University

The phrase "Cold War also tend, because they are

sciencefictiontllms" inevitably
conjures up images of giant in-
sects, alien invaders, and the
end of the worid. Films of this
type account for most of
Hollywood's science fiction
output between the late 1940s
and the late 1980s, and their sta-
tus as cultural artifacts of the
Cold War has been discussed at
length.' There is, however, an-
other dimension to the stor\: a
much smaller sub-genre that,
for the purposes of this essay. I
will term "space procedural."
The space procedural, like its Beating me bo\ iet> to tiie moon l^. tor the Amencans in CounidoH n 1
myster}-stor\- counterpart the absolute good.
police procedural, is defined b\'
its realism and its focus on the details of its characters' profes-
sional activities. The difference between a space procedural
and a film that simply takes place in space is a matter of empha-
sis. In the former, space travel remains in the foreground and
drives the plot; in the latter, it is simply means of mo\ ing the
characters around. Apollo 13 (1995j is a space procedural; Star
Wars (1911) is, not.
Space procedural are common in written science fiction,
but have always been comparati\ ely scarce on film.- Destina-
tion Moon, generally acknowledged as the first, appeared in 1950
and fewer than a dozen have followed it. The rarity of space
procedural is a product of two factors: their production costs,
and their dismal record as entertainment. High costs are a built-
in hazard of the sub-genre. Depicting space travel realistically,
as Robert Heinlein wrote w hile a consultant on Destination Moon.
takes time, money, and careful attention to detail. Low enter-
tainment value is another matter. It is due less to the inherent
limits of the form than to Hollywood's unfamiliarity with it and
to filmmakers' tendency to lose track of plot and character in
their anxiety to keep the technical details under control. The
money thrown at a typical space travel procedural does not al-
ways buy effective storytelling, but it generally buys craftsman-
ship, and space procedural thus tend to be well-made. They
carefully crafted, to deliver
their messages (implicit or ex-
plicit) w ith a clarity and preci-
sion lacking in less expensive,
less prestigious science fiction
films.
Early space procedural
tended to be apolitical, relying
on Man vs. Nature confiicts to
dri\e their plots. Where Man
vs. Man conflict existed at all,
it took place betw een members
of the crew or between the
crew and officials on Earth,
never between nations. The
closest that Destination Moon
comes to a political statement
is a vague reference to the need
to reach the moon before other, unspecified foreign pow ers claim
it as their own. Neither the steady intensification of the Cold
War nor the "space race" inaugurated b\ the Soviet Union's
launch of Sputnik I in 1957 brought significant changes in space
procedural. The 1961 flight of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin
and President John F. Kennedy s subsequent call for an Ameri-
can moon landing by the end of the decade had no visible effect
on the sub-genre. The major space travel films of the mid-1960s
tend toward comic-book broadness, not detailed realism.' Be-
ginning in 1968. however, space procedural became increas-
ingly realistic and Cold War politics began to play an increasingly
explicit role in them.
There is no obvious, satisfying explanation for this shift,
or for why it happened when it did. It is tempting, but prob-
ably misleading, to link it to the gradual slackening of super-
power tensions that began w ith the Test Ban Treaty of 1963. It
is equally tempting, and probably equally misleading, to see it
as an attempt to capitalize on the rapidly advancing Apollo
program. The real reason is likely more complicated and more
prosaic, tied to shooting schedules, the availability of space-
related properties, and Hollywood's cyclical interest in science
fiction. Whatever the reason, the space procedural became
politically aware in 1968. This essay is concemed with what

Vol. 31.2 (2001) I 45

Van Riper | From Gagarin to Armageddon. Soviet-American Relations in the Cold War Space Epic
happened over the next three decades. It explores the ways in
which space procedural from three distinct phases of the later
Cold War depicted, and commented on, Soviet-American re-
lations in their eras.
The real-world space race was drawing to a close in late
1968. Both the Soviet and American space programs were close
to putting manned spacecraft into lunar orbit. Both programs
had landed robot probes on the moon, and both could, in prin-
ciple, attempt a manned landing in the near future. "First On
The Moon" was the last great prize in the first phase of space
exploration. No other goal attainable with existing spacecraft
carried the same prestige. Certain that the United States would
beat them to a manned landing, Soviet officials hoped to win a
share of the glory by making the first manned orbital flight in
late 1968 or early 1969. Upon learning of this, American flight
planners rearranged existing flight schedules in order to launch
their own lunar orbital mission in December 1968. The tlight
of Apollo 8, which reached lunar orbit on Christmas Eve, marked
the effective end of the space race. When Apollo 11 left for the
moon seven months later, the question was not "Can America
get there first?" but "Can America do it the first time?""'
Robert Altman's Countdown (1968) appeared in the year
that ended with the flight oi Apollo 8, but adapted a Hank Searls
1964 novel The Pilgrim Project. The film traces the last, des-
perate weeks of a Soviet-American race to land the first man on
the moon. Nominally set in 1968, its attitudes are more charac-
teristic of 1964—a time when the Soviet lead in space seemed
unassailable. The assumption that the United States must beat
the Soviet Union to the moon (the last, greatest prize) is central
to the logic of its story.
The story begins when Colonel Charles "Chiz" Stewart,
training his crew for an Apollo moon landing mission still a
year in the future, receives word that a Soviet landing is immi-
nent. A one-man Soviet ship is headed for the moon to survey
landing sites from orbit, and a three-man ship will attempt a
landing in a month or less. Stewart explains to the other two
members of his crew that NASA has anticipated, and prepared
for, this kind of Soviet surprise. A secret moon landing pro-
gram code-named "Pilgrim" has been developed as an emer-
gency backup for Apollo. The Pilgrim spacecraft, a heavily
modified version of a two-man Gemini ship, will carry fuel and
supplies sufficient to get a single astronaut to the moon, but not
to bring him home again. Once the astronaut has landed, he
will move into a shelter delivered by an earlier, unmanned rocket
and subsist on supplies sent from Earth until the first Apollo
landing mission arrives to ferry him home. Pilgrim will, Stewart
says, be ready to launch in three weeks—just in time to beat the
Soviets at the finish line.
Beating the Soviets is, for the principal characters in
Countdown, an absolute and unquestioned good. They take the
importance of doing so for granted, and have little patience for
anyone who fails (or refuses) to see it. When Stewart's Apollo
crewmates express doubts about the Pilgrim concept, he bran-
dishes the technical manual like holy writ and snaps that "It's
all in there!." When a flight surgeon expresses concerns about
46 I Film & History
the physical demands on Pilgrim's lone astronaut, NASA chief
Ross Llewellyn overrides his objections and threatens to have
him court-martialed if he speaks out. Lee Stegler, the astronaut
chosen to fly the mission, brushes aside the doubts of his wife
and young son with more gentleness but equal finality.
Thirty years on, audiences would probably concur with Mrs.
Stegler and the flight surgeon: Pilgrim seems like a hare-brained
idea. Technologically it is a dead end, dependent on a jury-rigged
spacecraft that will do little to show off America's technological
sophistication. Operationally it is vacuous, its astronaut func-
tioning less as an explorer than as a flag planted to claim new
territory. Morally it is dubious, marooning the astronaut for a
year in a hostile environment with no possibility of rescue. Send-
ing Pilgrim to the moon seems rational only if getting there first
is matter of such transcendent importance that it trumps all other
concerns. Late in the film, when it becomes clear that a three-
man Soviet crew will reach the moon first. Project Pilgrim's rea-
son for existing appears to have evaporated. Stegler, however,
wants to fly the mission anyway. He is so committed to it, in
fact, that he lands even though he cannot locate the shelter that is
his only hope of survival.
The main characters' steely-eyed intensity is not politically
motivated. The race to the moon is, for them, analogous not to a
war but to a sporting event. Llewellyn is the victory-obsessed
coach, Stewart the veteran player sidelined on the eve of the Big
Game, and Stegler the untested rookie who must replace him.
Stegler's argument for launching Pilgrim—better second by three
days than second by a year—echoes the Olympic ideal that com-
peting well is as important as winning. His decision to land on
the moon rather than retum home is, like a last-second Hail Mary
pass or a last-inning swing for the bleachers, a high-stakes bet
that his strength and skill will allow him to beat the odds.
Consistent with the mythology of the Big Game, Stegler is
rewarded for his confidence and tenacity. He reaches the shelter
safely and, while traversing the lunar surface, discovers the wreck-
age of the Soviet spacecraft and the lifeless bodies of its three
cosmonauts. The United States has achieved at least a draw:
first man to land on the moon and retum safely to the Earth will
be an American. Nobody quotes Yogi Berra, but Countdown'^
implicit message seems to be: "'It ain't over "til it's over."
The first footprints on the moon are at least a generation
old in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), but the
tensions of the Cold War have not abated. Americans and Sovi-
ets alike reside on the moon, but each superpower has its own
base, its own personnel, and its own scientific agenda. The first
major human character to appear on screen is Dr. Heywood Floyd,
a scientist called to the American base to examine a still-secret
project. His first substantive conversation, with a group of four
Soviet scientists, shows that Soviet-American competition is as
much a part of 200rs world as it was of Countdown's.
Floyd knows one of the Soviets, Elena, personally. He
knows Dr. Smyslov, apparently the senior member of the group,
only by reputation. He exchanges a few vague pleasantries with
Elena, but it is Smyslov who captures and holds his attention.
The encounter takes place by chance, aboard an Earth-orbiting
 A. Bowdoin Van Riper | Special In-Depth Section

space station that serves as a voices) and ritualized

transfer point for all travelers (Smyslov alludes to a lunar
to the moon. It is a politically treaty), but it is no less real and
neutral space (their immediate no less intense than the homi-
surroundings resemble an air- nids' battles over food. If
port departure lounge), and the words have replaced bones as
conversation is studiously po- the weapons of choice for in-
lite. Beneath his politeness, tertribal conflict, it is only be-
though, Smyslov is intense, cause the same ingenuity that
probing. AU communications brought humans into space has
with the American lunar base At a politically neutral site. Soviet and Amencan scientists engage in a battle of made the real ones too power-
at Clavius have been out for the wits, not force, in 200/.- .4 Spuce Od\sse\ (1968). ful for everyday use. The
past ten days. A Soviet transport with engine trouble was denied Cold War, Kubrick seems to suggest, began not in 1945 but
permission to land there, in direct violation of an intemational millions of years ago on the dusty plains of East Africa.
treaty. Floyd expresses astonishment; his face is the epitome of Soviet-American relations in the two films of 1968 were
American openness and innocence. Smyslov leans closer, his defined by competition: physical in Countdown, mental
voice taking on a conspiratorial tone. He has heard, from reli- (substituting for physical) in 2001. The competitors, in each
able sources, that an epidemic of unknown origin has broken case, respect each other and respect the rules under which
out at the American base. Can Floyd confirm the fact? The they compete. Neither Soviets nor Americans have reason to
American responds, a bit primly now, that he is not at libert\ to fear death at the hands of the "enemy:" such violence would
discuss the matter. Smyslov smiles in triumph. be an unthinkable breach of the unspoken rules. Equally, how-
Several scenes later, it is clear that Floyd, not Smyslov, ever, neither Soviets nor Americans have reason to expect
won the verbal chess match aboard the space station. The ru- the other side to relax its guard. The worlds of Countdown
mors of an epidemic are part of a disinformation campaign de- and 2007 thus have much in common w ith the world of the
signed to keep the rest of the world at arm's length from the mid- to late 1960s. Cold War competition is a fact of life, but
American base. Briefing an audience of American scientists, the competition is not bellicose and not a direct threat to ei-
Hoyd thanks them for their help in maintaining the lie. He ac- ther superpower. Aggression has been muted, channeled, and
knowledges the discomfort the scientists feel about withholding contained by joint agreement. It can, like a chronic illness,
informadon and lying to colleagues, but does not share it. He be li\ed with but never eradicated,
appears, in retrospect, to have enjoyed misleading Smyslov. John Sturges's Marooned (1969) alters the formula estab-
Though an eminent scientist, Floyd is also a political animal. At hshed by its predecessors. The film's release date linked it, inevi-
the briefing he speaks not as a scientist but as an emissary from tably, to the successful lunar landings of Apollo 11 and Apollo 12.
American political leaders, sharing the frame w ith an American Its story of astronauts imperiled by a damaged spacecraft also
flag that stands in the comer of the room. foreshadowed the Apollo 13 near-disaster of February 1970. It is,
2007 begins with a long prologue, set four million years how e\ er, equally suggestive of events outside the space program.
in the past. A group of primitive hominids leams to use tools, It belongs, both in release date and in oudook. to the first mo-
first to procure food and then ments of the era of detente: to
to defend it against a rival the \ ears that \\ ould see the rad-
group. The famous cut that fication of SALT I and President
ends the prologue—a bone, Richard Nixon's improbable,
thrown into the air, becomes epoch-making visit to China.
the ship carrying Floyd tow ard Marooned revolves
the space station—underscores around the three-man crew of
the continuity between the Ironman One. an Apollo-type
tools of four million years ago spacecraft stranded in Earth or-
and those of 2001. Floyd's bit by the failure of its main en-
verbal sparring with Smyslov gine. One ofthe astronauts dies
underscores a similar continu- in a repair attempt, leaving the
ity of behavior. Floyd guards two survivors with barely
his secret information as zeal- enough oxygen to sur\ ive un-
ously, and Smyslov pursues it dl NASA can launch a rescue
as avidly, as the prologue's ri- mission. Delayed by a hurri-
val groups of hominids fought cane, the rescue vehicle lifts off
over a wildebeest carcass. The hours behind schedule. The
competition is polite (no raised Marooned (1969) is a hopefulfilm,released as the era of detente began. two sur\i\ in2 American astro-

Vol. 31.2 (2001) I 47

Van Riper | From Gagarin to Armageddon. Soviet-American Relations in the Cold War Space Epic
nauts, Lloyd and Stone, are half-dead from oxygen deprivation
when salvation arrives—in the form of a Soviet spacecraft. The
Soviet is given neither a name, a face, nor a voice, but he is
allowed to define himself by his actions. He and Stone first
attempt to transfer the unconscious Lloyd to the Soviet ship.
When the transfer fails, leaving Lloyd adrift and out of reach,
the Soviet crosses from his own ship to Ironman One. Once
there, he saves the lives of both Americans: sharing his own
oxygen supply with Stone and spotlighting Lloyd so that the
just-arrived American rescue ship can retrieve him. Then, with
all the surviving Americans safely united aboard the rescue ship,
the Soviet silently departs.
Nothing in the first two hours of the film suggests that
Soviet assistance for Ironman One is even a possibility. When
the President asks NASA manned space director George Keith
about it, Keith replies that all the Soviet ships currently aloft are
in orbits far from the American ship. When a Soviet ship does
arrive in the nick of time, Keith is astonished. He had, clearly,
made no further overtures to his opposite number in Moscow;
the Soviets acted entirely on their own. Astronaut Stone is equally
stunned by the arrival of the Soviet ship. Delirious from lack of
oxygen, he first mistakes its dark, unfamiliar shape for that of
the Angel of Death. Only when its hatch opens, revealing a
fellow space traveler, does he see that it represents Life.
Marooned presents its climactic rescue in space in ways
that recall a rescue on the high seas. Keith, briefing reporters,
refers to space as a hostile environment that will cost lives to
explore. The American astronauts and their ship are shown, for
the first time, in long shots that emphasize their isolation and
dependence on outside help. Lloyd's slow passage from ship to
ship suggests a maritime rescue by breeches buoy. Stone is saved
from "drowning" in the vacuum of space by a rescuer's gift of
his own (bottled) "breath." Both the Soviet and American res-
cuers must leave the safety of their ships and, like Coast Guard
rescue swimmers, plunge into the abyss themselves in order to
save others. The sea-space parallel is common in science fic-
tion, and by no means unique to Marooned.'^ By using it in a
story about a crippled ship, however. Marooned invokes the
unwritten "Law of the Sea" that bids mariners to render all pos-
sible assistance to others in peril. Absent evidence to the con-
trary, the audience is encouraged to conclude that the Soviets
acted for humanitarian reasons.
Marooned is a hopeful film, and far more optimistic than
its counterparts from 1968. It is also more optimistic than the
1964 Martin Caidin novel on which it was based. In the novel,
the pilot of the Soviet rescue ship is dispatched by his govem-
ment in the hope of scoring a propaganda coup. The ground-
based Soviet officials in the novel play the Cold War game as
relentlessly as their counterparts in the films of 1968. Caidin
allows only the Soviet pilot to display concern for the man he is
sent to rescue. Sturges not only allows the Soviet pilot to play a
greater role in the rescue, but eliminates the scheming political
officials on the ground. It suggests, but does not insist, that what
Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature" have exerted
their infiuence in the Soviet version of Mission Control. The
48 I Film & History
film ends abruptly once the rescue is concluded, pointedly de-
nying its characters the opportunity to comment on the im-
promptu Soviet-American cooperation that made it possible.
Whether such cooperation is a harbinger of things to come or an
extraordinary event bom of extraordinary circumstances, Ma-
rooned does not speculate.
Fifteen years later, 2070,- The Year We Make Contact dis-
played no such reservations. Released in December 1984, 2010
appeared at a time when superpower tensions were at their high-
est point since the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan, U. S. support for anti-Communist forces in Cen-
tral America, unprecedented peacetime arms buildups, and tit-
for-tat boycotts of the 1980 (Moscow) and 1984 (Los Angeles)
Olympic games provided ample grounds for mutual distrust. The
rise of hard-line leaders on both sides (Ronald Reagan in 1980,
Yuri Andropov in 1981) further reduced the possibility of recon-
ciliation. 2010's message is, like the politics of its era, deeply
polarized and drawn in bold colors with sharp-edged strokes. It
is, at once, a far more hopeful film than its 1968-69 predeces-
sors and a far more despairing one.
2010 is, as its title suggests, a sequel to 2007. Heywood
Floyd is once again a major a character and, once again, his first
significant act is a conversation with a Soviet counterpart. The
conversation in 2070 is, initially, the same sort of verbal chess
match as the one in 2007. Quickly, however, it moves in a very
different direction. Moisevich, the Soviet, is not the humorless
Smyslov of 2007. He soon cuts through the Cold War games-
manship by proposing that he and Floyd "play a game" called
"The Truth." For two minutes, Moisevich proposes, he and Floyd
will each tell nothing but the tmth. At first, Floyd approaches
the truth-telling process warily. He haggles over the time limit
(they settle on one minute, forty-five seconds), and, as they talk,
pointedly reminds Moisevich how much of it is left. Soon, how-
ever, Floyd has let his defenses down and speaks to Moisevich
honestly and at length.
A Soviet deep space research vessel, the Alexei Leonov, will
soon depart for Jupiter, the destination of the ill-fated American
mission chronicled in 2007. The crew of the Leonov is to investi-
gate both the American ship. Discovery, and a mysterious alien
artifact that it discovered. The Americans are planning a similar
mission, but the Leotwv will beat them to Jupiter by a year or
more. Both sides, Moisevich argues, want access to the secrets of
Discovery and the alien artifact. Neither side, however, is capable
of achieving such access on their own. The Americans cannot
beat the Soviets to Jupiter: the Soviets cannot easily reactivate
Discoveiy's systems or restart its onboard computer without Ameri-
can help. Moisevich proposes a cooperative venture. The Leonov
will carry a team of American scientists and engineers to Jupiter,
the Americans will reactivate Discovery, and both sides will gain
access to the knowledge that they want. The scene soon shifts to
a park bench outside the White House. There, Floyd makes the
same pitch to Victor Milson—a mediator, as Floyd was in 2001,
between the worlds of science and politics.
Superpower relations in the fictional world of 2070 are,
like those in the real world of 1984, tense and highly polarized.

Unspecified events in Central America have, as the story be-
gins, driven the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink
of armed confrontation. Floyd, Moisevich, and Milson are all
intimately familiar with the political realities of their time, but
all three view them with a sense of ironic detachment, Moise\ ich
says he can persuade his govemment to allow Americans on the
Leonov by presenting it as a propaganda coup: ""Helping out the
poor Americans." When Milson asks Floyd how he can sell the
mission to the President, Floyd suggests raising the specter of
unsupervised Soviets aboard Discover)'. Neither bureaucrat—
Moisevich or Milson—shows much respect for his political
masters. Milson describes the President as ""reactionary"' and
critiques his choice of lunch menus. Moisevich, when Floyd
asks him why the Soviet ship's name was changed from Titov to
Leonov. shrugs and says ""people fall out of favor."* Cold War
politics is not. for these men. the deadly serious matter it w as in
2001: it is a childish game played for mortal stakes.
In the world of 2001. scientists are compelled by political
leaders to decei\ e and manipulate the ""enemy," In the w orld of
20/0, it is pohtical leaders w ho are the enemy, nurturing discord
when they should seek common ground. Scientists must de-
ceive and manipulate them in order to cooperate with fellow
scientists. Floyd, a resolute deceiver of the Soviet ""enemy"" in
2007, remains standoffish in the first moments of 2070.
Moisevich soon wins him over, however, pointing out that: ""We
are scientists: our govemments hate each other, not us." Later,
aboard the Leonov. Floyd uses a similar argument on the ini-
tially frosty Soviet crew: ""Just because our govemments are act-
ing like asses, doesn't mean we have to!"
Throughout 2070, Soviet and American characters are
driven to form bonds that transcend (and belie) the ""us-and-
them" rhetoric of their leaders. Milson and Moisevich join
forces (off-screen) because neither can circumvent his own
govemment's political restrictions on science without the
other's help. Floyd and Soviet scientist Irina Yakunina. both
terrified as the Leonov's pilots use an untested maneuver called
""aerobraking" to enter Jovian orbit, hold each other tightly for
mutual comfort. Soviet crewman Maxim Brailovsky and
American engineer Walter Cumow become friends after Max
helps the acrophobic Walter
through a crucial space walk.
Eventually, as the mission pro-
ceeds, the o n c e - s e p a r a t e
American and Soviet contin-
gents merge into a single, uni-
fied crew. They realize
collectively what Max and
Walter have already leamed in-
dividually—that completing
the mission means learning to
tmst the ""enemy."
The Leonov's physical
isolation from Earth speeds this
process by distancing the crew
from the political realities of the 2010 (1984»offers a deepl> anibi\ alent V iew future Soviet-.^mencan relations, mediate
A. Bowdoin Van Riper | Special In-Depth Section
Cold War. Messages from home, w ith their inevitable remind-
ers of the deepening Central American crisis, are infrequent.
Traditional political authorities are inaccessible, and thus un-
able to disturb the idyll of cooperation and friendship unfolding
aboard the Leonov. Ultimately. howe\er, the Cold War proves
capable of reaching even to the orbit of Jupiter, Messages from
Earth report that the United States and the Soviet Union are poised
on the brink of nuclear w ar over events in Central America. The
Jupiter mission is to be terminated, and the tw o crew s must sepa-
rate. The So\ iets w ill retum home aboard the Leonov. the Ameri-
cans aboard the now -re\ ived Discovery. Significantly, earlier
complications have made it impossible for either ship to break
free of Jupiter's gravity by itself The only way home is to link
the two ships physically for the initial acceleration tow ard Earth.
The departure from Jupiter thus underlines what 2070 sees as
the tragic absurdit\ of the Cold \\'ar, Tlie Soviet and American
crew s must join in order to fulfill their leaders' orders to sepa-
rate. Their last, most challenging cooperative endeavor w ill place
them on separate, parallel courses toward a world that competi-
tion may w ell render desolate b\ the time the\ arri\ e.
2070 ends, like 2007. with the intervention of a mysteri-
ous, powerful alien species in the affairs of the human race. In
2070. the aliens" actions so stun the leaders of Earth that they
defuse the Central American crisis, end the Cold War. and inau-
gurate a new era in human history. The film thus has a happy
ending, but one whose fairy tale quality feels incongruous in a
film w hose visual hallmark is its scrupulously detailed realism."
2070 thus offers a deeply ambi\ alent view of the future. It sug-
gests that Soviet-American hostility can be dissolved (as on the
Leonov) by trust and friendship, but also that quasi-divine inter-
\ention may be required to break the Cold War's spell. This
mixed message—hope warring with despair—seems, in retro-
spect, a ver> apt one for closing months of 1984.
The fifteen \ ears betw een Marooned and 2070 saw both a
waning (in the 1970s) and a renewal (in the early 1980s) of the
Cold War. The fourteen \ears between 2070 and the summer
blockbuster .4n«<7^<'^<7o7! (1998) saw its sudden, unexpected
conclusion. Armageddon, like most summer action mo\ies. was
made for an audience composed primarily of teenagers and young
adults. It w as. in other w ords,
a space epic for a generation
with few if any memories of the
Cold \\'ar. The typical ticket-
buyer toT.Armageddon was not
yet born when the Apollo
flights of 1968-69 effectively
ended the Soviet-.American
""space race."^ Russians and
Americans had. throughout his
conscious lifetime, followed
different courses in space: the
Russians w ith their Mir space
station, the Americans with
their tleet of shuttles. The im-
of
future of space travel
Vol. 51.2 (2001) I 49
Van Riper | From Gagarin to Armageddort. Soviet-American Relations in the Cold War Space Epic
would, for him, have always involved Russians and Americans
cooperating to build an Intemational Space Station.
Interactions between Russian and American space travel-
ers are integral to, but not the point of, Armageddon. The film
concems Harry Stamper's oil-drilling crew, a colorful band of
rogues called on by NASA to land on, bore into, and destroy a
Texas-sized asteroid headed for the Earth. The ships carrying
Stamper and his men stop at ""the Russian space station" to re-
fuel, but in the process an accident destroys the station, forcing
its lone inhabitant tojoin the mission. Loud, fast, and awash in
testosterone, Armageddon is by far the least subtle of the five
films discussed here. It is also, with 2001. the most finely crafted.
The film's plot, characters, and tone all appear to have been care-
fully, consciously designed to appeal to its target audience.'' Its
portrayal of Russian cosmonaut Lev Andropov is, presumably,
designed with equal care.
When the audience first encounters Andropov, aboard the
Russian space station, he has been there alone for eighteen
months. He looks like a street person and speaks in long, fast,
rambling sentences that teeter on the edge of dementia but never
quite fall in. The station itself is in even worse shape. As soon
as the refueling process begins, a crucial valve fails, causing
volatile fuel to spray from leaking pipe joints. The emergency
shutoff lever and the intercom both fail and, in moments, a fuel
explosion begins to tear the station apart. Andropov barely es-
capes with his life, pulling away on one of the American shuttles
as the station literally disintegrates beneath him.
Freed from the station and safe aboard the shuttle,
Andropov undergoes a striking transformation. He becomes
more lucid, more aware of his surroundings, and more coopera-
tive. He remains pessimistic to the point of absurdity but this, in
the context of Armageddon, is evidence not of psychosis but of
characterization. Each of the characters in the film is defined by
a single character trait, and Andropov's is pessimism. He quickly
becomes part of the team, and twice saves his new comrades'
lives by repairing damaged machines at crucial moments. To
complete the first repair he must cling to the outside of a vehicle
hurtling across the asteroid's surface; to complete the second,
he pushes aside a by-the-checklist American pilot and revives
the balky machine by banging on it with a wrench. He thus
exhibits, in tum, physical bravery, a gift for improvisation, and a
healthy disregard for established procedure: precisely those char-
acter traits that Armageddon's heroes exhibit, and that the film
celebrates as definitively ""American."
Lev (as the American characters all come to call him) re-
tums to Earth with the other survivors of the mission. He sets
foot on American soil for what is presumably the first time in his
life and is greeted as ecstatically as his American comrades.
These scenes complete Lev's personal transformation. Freed
from the "Russian" world of the space station (dark, aimless,
decaying) and placed in the ""American" world of the shuttles,
he has been saved not just physically but spiritually. He has
become not just a collaborator (as in Marooned) or a member of
the team (as in 2070) but ""one of the guys"—an American in all
but birth and accent.
50 I Film & History
Earlier films suggest (Marooned obliquely and 2070 di-
rectly) that Americans and Russians can find common bonds
beneath their superficial differences. Armageddon seems to sug-
gest that Russians are Americans, or would transform themselves
into Americans if given (as Lev was) the opportunity and means
to do so. It is a message fully consistent with the belief that
America "'won" the Cold War, and that the wages of victory would
be the worldwide spread of democracy and capitalism. It is
also a message fully consistent with Armageddon's spectacular
displays of American iconography and unapologetic celebration
of what it sees as ""American" values.
The thirty years between 1968 and 1998 brought the United
States from deep intemal division to deep self-satisfaction. They
brought the Soviet Union from superpower status to oblivion
and, consequently, the Cold War from a defining feature of world
affairs to a fading memory. They brought the American and
Soviet (now Russian) space programs from direct competition
to fruitful, if sometimes exasperating, cooperation. The space
epics of the era, taken as a group, reflect something of each of
those joumeys. Countdown and Armageddon are both stories
about the triumph of Amedcan bravery and ingenuity and the
failure of the Soviet system. They are not, however, the same
story. The jubilant flag-waving of Armageddon is as far from
the tense, hushed secrecy of Countdown as the reunification of
Germany is from the Prague Spring.
Notes
1. The history of the science fiction film has been ably surveyed by
Baxter (through the late 1960s) and Sobchack (through the mid-
1970s. with a brief survey of later films added for the revised edi-
tion). The films of the 1950s are discussed e.xhaustively by Warren,
and those of the 1970s by Anderson. No similar works yet cover the
post-1980 era, Biskind (ch. 3) explores the impact of the Cold War
on a variety of science fiction films, as does Newman: neither deals,
except in passing, with space procedurals.
2. Prominent writers of space procedurals include Robert A. Heinlein.
Arthur C, Clarke. Allen Steele. Ben Bova, and Stephen Baxter Space
procedural films include: Destination Moon (1950). The Conquest of
Space (1955). Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964). The Right Stuff (1983).
Space Camp (1986), Apollo 13 (1995), and the five discussed in this
essay. Discussions of the sub-genre or the films that make it up are
virtually non-existent, Sobchack, for example, deals with Marooned
in a few paragraphs and Countdown in a few sentences. The notable
exception is 2001: A Space Odyssey, whose procedural aspects are.
generally speaking, treated as symbolic rather than realistic.
3. Prominent examples of the comic-book style (all from 1967) include
the Jerry Lewis vehicle Way. Way Out. the James Bond adventure
You Only Live Twice, and the James Bond spoof In Like Flint.
4. The history of Project Apollo receives comprehensive treaunent in
Chaikin, while Zimmerman focuses on the Apollo 8 mission and its
impact. Oberg tells the Soviet side of the story. Heppenheimer and
Crouch's histories of the space age treat the U. S. and Soviet space
programs in parallel.
5. A. Bertram Chandler, Poul Anderson, and Andre Norton are among
the many authors who used the sea-space parallel in written science
fiction during the 1950s and 1960s. It is also the basis of the ongo-
ing Star Trek saga, whose ""Starfleet"" makes extensive use of naval
protocol, organization, and language,
6. The name change is, for those familiar with Soviet space program, a
subtle in-joke, Alexei Leonov was the commander of the Soviet
 A. Bowdoin Van Riper | Special In-Depth Section

spacecraft that docked with an American ship during the ApoUo- A. Bowdoin Van Riper received
Soyuz rendezvous mission of 1975. His was the Soviet hand in that
his PhD in the history of science
mission's widely publicized "handshake in space."'
2010. made only a few years after Voyager I and Voyager 2 rtinmeA
from the University of
the first close-up photographs of Jupiter and its moons, made excel- Wisconsin—Madison in 1990.
lent use of then-current scientific data. One example: the fine sulfur He currently teaches in the Social
dust, ejected from recently discovered \ olcanoes on the Jo\ ian moon and International Studies
Io, covering the surface of the derelict Discovery. Program at Soudiem Polytechnic
The typical ticket-buyer is, moreover, overwhelmingly likely to be State University, a branch ofthe
male. Subsequent use of the male pronoun is. for this reason, com-
University System of Georgia,
pletely intentional.
This judgement is, to some extent, a matter of conjecture, but direc- His research focuses on the
tor Michael Bay"s inclusion of virtually every stock character and public understanding of science
plot device found in action-adventure movies strongly supports it. and, increasingly, on represen-
The challenge of coherently working exotic dancers, automatic weap- tations of science and technology
ons, and a car chase into a story about blowing up an asteroid should in popular culture. His
not be taken lightly. Armageddon's conscious play for a young, male publications include Men Among
audience becomes even clearer when it is viewed alongside Deep
Impact, a more conventional extraterrestrial-impact film released a the Mammoths (University of Chicago Press. 1993) and the
few months earher. forthcoming Science in Popular Culture (Greenwood Press,
2002),
Works Cited
Anderson, Craig W. Science Fiction Films ofthe Seventies. Jefferson, NC:
McFarland, 1985.
Baxter, John. Science Fiction in the Cinema. London:
Zwemmer/Bames, 1970.
Biskind, Peter. Seeing is Believing: How HoUytvood Taught Us Vision / Re-Vision:
To Stop Worrying and Love the Fifties. New York: Pan-
TuM£ IM OM THESE BOOKS * Adapting Contemporary
American Fiction
theon, 1983.
AVAILABLE THROUGH by Women to Film
Caidin, Martin. Marooned. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1964. • Editor: Bc-rbara Tepa Lupack
Chaikin, Andrew. A Man on the Moon: Tlie Voyages of the Apollo A collectKsn of essays freshly assessing the most
?O?UU\R fftESS, imrrSsdiate and complex ofthe concerns in con-
Astronauts. New York: Penguin, 1994. veying the integrity of women's voices and appro-
Crouch, Tom D. Reaching for the Stars: The Dreamers and priate representation of the female point of view
. i n t h e f i l m adaptations of contemporary
Doers ofthe Space Age. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Ameri^ij^ fiction by women, finding much to
Institution, 1999. praise and much to fault.
Coming After Oprah: 250 pp
Heinlein, Robert A. "Making Destination Moon."" 1950. In 714-4 S24 95 paper. 713-6 S45.95 cloth
Cultural Fallout in the Age
Focus on the Science Fiction Film. ed. William Johnson. of the TV Taik Show i
Englewood CUffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1972. •AVicki Abt & Leonard Mustazza /•
Heppenheimer, T A. Countdown: A History of Space Travel. Coming After Oprat^. Cultural Fallout in the
Age ofthe TV Talk Show is the first book-length
New York: John Wiley, 1997. study assessing a decade of (toxic)
Newman, Kim. Apocalypse Movies: End ofthe World Cinema. talkshows-tslk that makes the quiz-show scan-
; Hollywood's World War i:
dals of the 1950s look innocuous by compansoh.
New York: St. Martin"s, 1999. More than just a commentary on the aesthetics Motion Picture Images
Oberg, James. Red Star In Orbit. New York: Random House. of the genre, this book looks at the evglution and • Editors: Peter C Rollins & John E- O'Connor
cultural significance of these programs, disputing In this study of feature films and documentaries,
1981. claims that they are nothing more than harmless Hollywood's World War I traces America's chang-
Searls, Hank. Tlie Pilgrim Project. New York: Houghton Mifflin, entertainment. ing views over five (J^ades, as filmmakers have
1964. 205 pp., index focused on a<risis that still reverberates in our
75i-7 SiO.9S paper • 751-9 S+8.95 cloth CIVIC and spiritual lives.
Sobchack, Vivian. Screening Space: The American Science Fic- 304. pp., photos, index
* V
tion Film. 2"'^ ed. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univer- 756-x J19.95 paper . 755-1 J49.95 cloth
sity Press, 1987. In the Eye of the Beholder:
Critical Perspectives
Warren, Bill. Keep Watching the Skies.': American Science Fic- in Popular Film and Television
tion Movies of the Fifties. 2 vol. Jefferson, NC: • Editors: Gary R. Edgerton,
McFarland. 1982. Michael T Marsden a Jack Mechbar
A rich assortment of sociocultural perspectives
Zimmerman, Robert. Genesis: The Story ofApollo 8. New York: in popular film and television, highl ghtmg their Beyond the Stars 5:
Four Walls, Eight Windows, 1998. heterogeneity, critical strategies, ard ma n a-eas Themes and Ideoiogies
of interest. Focuses on the popular tradition, the
contemporary cultural landscape, and includes
in American Popular Film
bibliographic surveys. Clues to ourselves over the JljrEditors: Paul Loukides &Unda K. Fuller
nations motion picture and TV screens The f i ^ h volume in this series of sctwiarship on
American movie conventions examirStfamily,
i 7 4 pp.. photos
social class, gender roles, politics, war?^orts,
.95 paper • 753-5 f+9.95 cloth
hedonism, and the 1960s in an exploration of
many of our most basic cultural assumption?
their expression in Amencan f
To Order: i.8oo»5i5«5i''8 301 pp.
PoDplar Press, Bowling Green State 702-0 J19.95 paper • 701-2 S35.95 cloth
U(tfi/ersity Bowling Green, Ohio 43403

Vol. 31.2 (2001) I 51