By Matthew Wilkinson

A feature documentary on the possible future of our species. From science fact to possible events that lie before us.

Set against the backdrop of a road trip across Russia, we will follow a rocket’s train journey from its factory outside Moscow,

to the launch pad at the Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Featuring interviews from leading thinkersincluding Dr. Stephen Hawking and Noam Chomsky.

We will debate humanity’s possible future beyond this planet.

HUMANITY’S PROBABLE FUTURE

SYNOPSIS

According to many leading scientist & economists, we have 150 years to get off this planet and establish a permanent colony on some other celestial object. With the planet’s resources drying up and an ever-expanding population, the human race is faced with the prospect of the next great step in human history.

Space is a broad ranging look at the future.

Laying aside everything we have learnt, we now get to witness the true spectacle of space travel as it exists today.

Soyuz Factory

LOCATIONS

Star City

The Khrunichev plant was established during World War 2 as Factory No. 23 to

produce heavy bomber aircraft. In 1951 it was augmented by the addition of

OKB-23, the factory's own design bureau, who are now responsible for producing

all of Russia’s space-launch systems. It is also part of the International Launch

Services (ILS), a joint venture with Space Transport Inc., a privately held

corporation based in the British Virgin Islands. ILS provides commercial sales

and mission management of satellite launches on the Proton, and is the

manufacturer responsible for the building of manned space stations including

Mir, the Salyut series and theAlmaz modules.

Khrunichev State Research & Production Space Centre

Rocket Propulsion Centre

Yuri Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Centre

Here we will witness tests

on rocket propulsion systems,

to better understand what

magnitude of power must be harnessed

in order to launch man into orbit.

The Cosmodrome

CHARACTERS

TALKING HEADS / NARRATORS

Dr. Stephen Hawking

"Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such

as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other

dangers ... I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space."

"I don't think the human race will survive the next 1,000 years unless we spread

into space.”

Sir Patrick Moore

“This century will be very interesting.”

“I haven’t got a clue how to visualize infinity. Even Einstein hadn’t.I know because I asked him.”

Zizek is a Slovenian continental philosopher and critical theorist, with an opinion on everything. He is one of the most prominent thinkers of our time,

of humanity in a way even people who only read the back of cereal packets can understand. We will speak to him about why human beings are so obsessed with space travel, what philosophical implications our penetration of space could have, and how human beings will be able to establish the laws and orders that govern our life here on earth. We will also ask him what it is about the Russian psychology that has kept Russia at the forefront of the Space Race, while their main rival America’s interest has dulled.

"Think about the strangeness of today's situation. Thirty, forty years ago, we were still debating about what the future will be: communist, fascist, capitalist, whatever. Today, nobody even debates these issues. We all silently accept global capitalism is

here to stay. On the other hand, we are obsessed with cosmic catastrophes: the whole life on earth disintegrating, because of some virus, because of an asteroid

hitting the earth, and so on. So the paradox is, that it's much easier to imagine the end of all life on earth than a much more modest radical change in capitalism."

“Science talks about very simple things, and asks hard questions about them.”

Chomsky is arguably the most eminent American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist and political dissident of his generation. We will speak to him about what possible outcome and/or dangers lie ahead, asking him to address how the free market currently governs world affairs, and its impact on space exploration and discovery.

Noam Chomsky

We also intend to speak with people working in more applied areas of space travel. Several of these we will source from the factories, museums, training facilities, and spaceports we visit.

We do also plan to speak to leading planet model scientists, cosmonauts, anthropologists and other experts from elsewhere. Alongside this we will be referencing the work of other writers, thinkers and philosophers, including Phillip K. Dick, J.G. Ballard, Tom Wolfe, & Ray Kurzwell.

Space is a very real look at what leaving the planet means today. What excites me most about this movie is the mixture of human interest, big ideas and jaw dropping visual canvases. Shooting this film on 3-D will not only immerse the viewer into the immediate world of the people and cultures we encounter, but also symbolize the fine and often distorted line between science fiction and science fact.

Filming in 3-D has traditionally been impractical and expensive, however recent innovations have rendered it more feasible and affordable. Avatar, the highest grossing movie of all time is 3-D, as well as many other recent blockbusters including Alice in Wonderland, Clash of the Titans, and Toy Story 3-D. Furthermore the release of exclusively 3-D TV channels shows that the demand for this medium is exceptionally high: offering huge financial incentives, as well as artistic ones.

Space will look at how seamlessly Russia’s space program fits in with the country’s political and economic values, from its history to its most current conquests. It is about the reality of our present situation: looking at how this supposedly alien and futuristic enterprise involves the lives of normal people.

This aspect of the film will be largely in keeping with the intentions of Albert Maylses’ Grey Gardens. Working without a script, this 1975 piece of cinéma vérité is described by its director as “an adventurous process of discovery,” where there is no “attempt to develop a point of view, but rather just letting things happen as they do.” This method of filmmaking avoids the underwhelming tokenistic cliché of imparting information, and instead presents the viewer with something, which Maylses can claim to be “the real thing.”

DIRECTORS STATEMENT

The juxtaposition of ideas will be similarly echoed in the visual imagery. While shooting in 3-D, our treatment of the provincial Russian landscape will follow on from infamous Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky. Poetically engaging the region’s alien plains and hostile environments, Tarkovsky was constantly looking for some “philosophical truth” told in his stories, but cemented by their settings.

Secondary footage (to accompany the talking head’s discourse) will be treated in a different way. Rather than the usual glib computer graphics, we will engage more straightforward methods, similar to that used in Zwigoff’s 1994 Crumb documentary. Employing 3-D, we will use pop-up style and classic illustration (depicting, for instance the path of planetary orbits), incorporating classroom-style pointers and hand gestures in order to animate what is being described.

Of equal importance is the audio vernacular. Similar to Takashi Miike’s soundtrack to the Zatoichi film, we have invited Ivor Guest (Taxi to the Dark Side, The Football Factory) to compose an original score from the field recordings we collect during the road trip across Russia. Whether it be the noises of a 288-ton object journeying from its factory into orbit or the bleating goats in the Kazakhstan Steppes, Guest will manipulate the sounds into building percussive tracks, bringing a tense authenticity to the bizarre vein of reality we are following.

This in turn will be accompanied by a more straightforward interpretation of a movie soundtrack; collecting the traditional folk songs and more modern exploits of Russian punk rockers to further place our story within a contemporary, everyday society.

This is a film about space & the future, and accordingly it is imperative that every strand of human experience is represented. The firm base of astronomers, physicists and others immersed in the science of space travel will be counterweighed by the thoughts of psychologists, writers and philosophers. These disparate dialects will in turn be applied by the untainted opinions of laymen and other persons uninvolved in both the theorizing and mechanics of space exploration.

Every aspect of the film, from its content to its visual and audio interpretations should have the effect of ‘grounding’ the grandiose nature of space exploration, and lifting the everyman’s view in order to create a balanced and open debate on our future, and bring notions about our future into the orbit of people’s everyday lives.

Space will set out looking for avenues that might lead us to unexpected conclusions and raise pertinent questions about the way humanity, as a single organism should, could and does operate. There will be an obvious comparison to known stories from history, namely Columbus.

SUMMARY

More so than the discovery of a new land, Columbus had promised the Portuguese king and merchants’ gold. It was this simple economic prize, which served to finance his mission.

Presently our technological limitations render exploration of the moon, solar system and beyond expensive and un-profitable. During the space race of the Cold War, the purpose of victory was political and propaganda-led therefore both America and the USSR released huge amounts of capitol for the projects. It was only once public interest waned from the moon landings and television ratings were down that funding ran out.

March 2010 saw an official notice from the US government that their interest in human space exploration has dwindled. This again relates directly back to economics: space still offers no return on investment. We will look at new interests and initiatives currently being exploited by China, India and other rising superpowers. It seems that only once space exploration becomes space exploitation can off-planet expansion become a reality.