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The list of “firsts” in orbit as part of the Soviet space program is legendary: first satellite, first dog, first man, first woman.
Now another is looming after Russia sent an actor and director to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of plans to make the first film in orbit – and once again put one on the Americans. .
The arrival of actor Yulia Peresild, 37, and director Klim Shipenko, 38, to the ISS looks likely to beat a Hollywood project announced last year by Tom Cruise, NASA and Elon Musk’s SpaceX .
“Welcome to the ISS!” Russian space agency Roscosmos said on Twitter, before tweeting images of Peresild and others enter the station for a 12-day mission to film scenes from a feature film called The Challenge.
The plot of the film, which was mostly kept under wraps with its budget, has been described by Roscosmos as being centered on a female surgeon who is sent to the ISS to save a cosmonaut.
Anton Shkaplerov, a three space mission veteran who traveled with the actor and director, would have a cameo role, along with two other Russian cosmonauts aboard the ISS.
The head of the US space agency revealed last year that Cruise was in talks with NASA to work on a film shot in space.
“We need popular media to inspire a new generation of engineers and scientists to make NASA’s ambitious plans a reality” tweeted then NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine.
The tweet followed a report that Cruise was working with Musk, the founder of SpaceX, to make what would be the first feature film shot in space.
Last month Cruise got a glimpse of what it’s like to circle Earth in a SpaceX capsule when the actor participated in a call with the four space tourists orbiting over 360 miles high on the first the company’s private charter flight.
Now, however, the arrival of a Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft carrying Peresild and Shipenko means that Russian plans are likely to trump those of Nasa, Cruise and company.
The ISS crew, which also includes a French and a Japanese and three NASA astronauts, greeted the new arrivals as the hatch opened on Tuesday.
“It was tough psychologically, physically and emotionally… but I think when we reach our goal not all challenges will seem so bad,” said Peresild – who was selected from 3,000 applicants for the job – during a press conference before the flight. Monday.
Peresild, whose previous roles have included the role of Soviet sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko in the Battle of Sevastopol in 2015, and Shipenko are expected to return to Earth on October 17. They will board the return capsule with cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky, who has been on the ISS for six months.
“I’m in shock. I still can’t imagine my mother being there,” the actor’s daughter Anna said in Russian television comments.
Shipenko, who has directed several commercially successful films and will complete filming on Earth after filming the film’s space episodes, also described their accelerated four-month preparation for the flight as difficult.
“Of course, we couldn’t do a lot on the first try, and sometimes even on a third try, but that’s to be expected,” he said.
Shkaplerov took manual control of the spacecraft carrying them docked at the space outpost after a glitch in an automatic system at the end of their three-and-a-half-hour journey from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
As Russia lags behind in the global space race and faces fierce competition from more innovative and well-resourced companies in the United States and China, the move has been hailed by the Kremlin.
“Space is where we have become pioneers, where despite everything we maintain a fairly confident position,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Last month, SpaceX completed the first fully civilian mission to space, taking four astronauts in a three-day orbit around Earth.
The trip followed the missions of Richard Branson, who spent several minutes weightless in July, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who completed a similar mission days later.
This month, actor William Shatner, now 90 and best known for his portrayal of Captain Kirk in Star Trek, will take to space on a mission with Bezos’ Blue Origin.
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