REVIEW: state of weightlessness channel 4 sunday october lst 1995

This programme, part of the Equinox series of science documentaries, explored the history of the Russian space program through the personal accounts of some of those involved, including the cosmonauts, the scientists, the military men, and the human guinea-pigs who were used for extensive tests made during the fifties prior to the first human to be sent into outer space. It provided an extremely interesting insight into the experiences of those who were involved, as well as showing some stunning film shot in space which we intend to sample for our own training videos. The most telling accounts were by those who described the boredom and despair of living in space, obliged to fuifill their function as cosmonauts, obeying the commands of ground control, carrying out stupid experiments and endless monitoring of themselves and their craft. At the end of the programme one Russian scientist even admitted that he regarded it as his own personal failure that the problem of discovering an activity in space that the cosmonauts could feel was natural to living in those conditions had not been solved. But this failure was clearly due to the fact that he was looking for activities based on the concept of work, and trying to establish a use-value to the cosmonauts' activities in space that was still based on the commodity-exchange values back on planet earth. This is another indication of how similar the economies of the Soviet Union and the West were (and still are in the form they take today) in terms of what value they place on everyday pursuits. It is essential that we recognise the potential that space represents for our pleasure, and do not seek justification for space travel in terms dictated by a work-ethic mentality. This is why the AAA wish to conduct sex in space experiments, demonstrating the improved quality of sex in zero gravity will show how many other areas of day to day life will open up when we create independent space programs and begin to build our own space ships. And only by completely negating the idea of 'natural' activities, like the kind that this scientist was so desperate to discover for his cosmonauts, and instead celebrating the most unnatural of acts, will we start to realise that the universe is a vast playground that is up for grabs.