"This film is dedicated to the soviet men of science, engineers and workers, who've created a new planet in the Solar System." "They have brought the Sun's satellite from fiction into the reality's orbit." "I" "Was" "a Sun's" "Satellite" "A fantastic cine-fiction" "Just now another machine has left for the Moon." "Which means, it's exactly eight o'clock." "A month ago I was a Sun's satellite." "But I shouldn't rush ahead." "What happened probably interests you not only as my friend, but as a writer too..." "It all started when I was a child, under strange and mysterious circumstances." "Once, having arrived home from out of town," "I stumbled upon a telegram." ""Made a mistake." "Forgot to close the safe with the old documents." "In case Andrey knows the truth, will arrive at once." "Sergey."" "I didn't understand what father wrote to my mother." "Aside from the drawings, I found some kind of a box." "A toy..." "A photo..." "Old newspapers, with the articles about the launches of satellites around Earth and the Sun." "What "truth" were they hiding from me?" "What sort of "documents" did father write about?" "Perhaps these videophone tapes?" "I saw the man from the photo." "He was inside a flying rocket." "Why aren't you speaking?" "Does the connection work?" ""Space" here." ""Space" here." "I see some kind of gleaming." "To the left." "I see it on the left." "But that's not it." "What is it?" "What were they searching for in space?" "My father was a designer of spaceships." "He used to tell a lot about his work, his friends..." "But he never told me about this man." "...which means that the road to space is open!" "And that means, we must speed up the construction of our big spaceship!" "Absolutely not." "The space is full of deadly impassable zones!" "Where are the facts?" "Where's the evidence?" "Who has observed them?" "Or has any records of them?" "It's there." "Close to the sun." "Perhaps today" "I'll manage to persuade you." "The Physical Institute was kind enough to inform us about its new research, which, I believe, is exceptionally important for us as well." "Professor Kolossovsky has joined us here to to tell you, why he's here in the first place." "Let's listen to Kolossovsky." "Turn on the transmitter." "Despite the fact, that the radio contact with the Earth's satellites and even our first Sun's satellites was stable and firm enough, we don't have full confidence whether it'll be just as reliable further in space." "And here's why." "You know very well, that the states of matter are infinite." "Some of them are simply impenetrable for radio waves." "We were able to reproduce one of those states." " And I contend that..." " One minute, please." "Look at it, Sergey." "On Earth this state of matter manifests itself in this form." "If it gets in the way of radio waves, the radio contact will be lost." "I contend that... this kinds of state occupy vast areas in space." " Why wouldn't they?" " And I contend... that at least half of radio noise in space depends on these states." "And I contend that all the electronics on our ships in these kind of zones - will fail." "Which will be a disaster for the ship." "On Earth, however, we're able to alter their properties to some extent." "To destroy them, for instance." "You may turn it off." "We'll learn to destroy them in space as well." "If our ships don't get in the way." "But at first we must study the nature of these zones." "I don't know yet in which areas of space they exist." "But I do know how to study them!" "And best place for it is near the Sun!" "That's why I insist that the main goal right now is not manned flights, but a series of experiments in space of the same scale, the same mobilization of resources, as in those historical days, when soviet scientists," "created the first artificial Sun satellite!" "What's all that about some mythical zones?" "Who ever saw them?" "I don't know about theory, but I've been flying the Moon routes for five years." "No zones." "Suppose your ship never gets into such a zone." "But they do exist." "We won't understand each other, Igor." "I doubt that your so called "zones" will stop our work." "I'm afraid, they will." " Shall we start, Sergey?" " Let's start." " Red alert." " Red alert!" " Attention." " Attention!" "Attention" " Ready for start." " Ready for start!" "Five..." "Four..." "Three..." "Two..." "One..." "Start!" "Father." "Did you see anything else?" "I couldn't say a word." "Igor Petrovich was a great scientist." "I'll tell you about him." "In 1957 the first soviet artificial satellite appeared in the sky." "The era of space exploration began." "That first space scout was followed by flying laboratories and the second and third satellites and many others." "And soon the greatest event in the era of building communism took place." "On the 2nd of January, 1959, a space rocket was launched towards the Moon, becoming a new planet in the Solar System." "And so, the first time in the history of mankind, a Sun's artificial satellite was created." "Already then people got a lot of precious data on outer space, and on passage of radio waves through it." "You know about Northern Lights." "Their intricate flashing colors light up the dense darkness of long polar nights." "Only they, amidst the icy silence, remind people about the colorfulness of the world lit by the Sun." "You probably know about the magnetic storms that disturb the radio transmission." "Many times before, the sailors were in distress because the compass arrow couldn't show the way anymore." "You must've heard about these electric and magnetic effects." "But I doubt that you know that the cause of all this is our Sun." "To study the conditions, under which such occurrences take place," "Igor Petrovich launched a number of automatic laboratories around the Sun." "He thought, these satellites would prove that, akin to what happens on Earth under the influence of the Sun, the same happens in the interplanetary space." "Once Igor Petrovich went to space himself to find his laboratory." "But he failed." "It cost him his life." "That's all." "This monkey was Igor Petrovich's present to his son on his first birthday." "Some day I'll tell you more about it." "Andrey!" "You must try to be like Igor Petrovich." "Father's last words sounded... strange." "I realized he hadn't told me something most important." "Years passed and the feeling of undisclosed truth gradually faded from my memory." "Not so long ago, you, my friend, dreamed of being an astronaut, and now you've become a writer." "I found my vocation too..." "After working on the Moon routes I devoted myself to science." "Our lab was creating protective materials for spaceships." "We managed to create a new material, which could protect astronauts from cosmic radiation, in any known conditions." "We all were expecting the greatest event." "The casing of the new ship had been made from our material." "It was supposed to launch a scientific expedition in space for the first time." "But something unexpected happened." "One of the devices on the rocket with an animal, which had returned from an exploring flight, had registered an unusual increase in radiation." "Standard..." "Standard..." "Standard..." "A burst!" "Standard again." "But no deviation is seen on the second device." "And why should we doubt the results of hundreds of experiments?" "And why should we trust this device anyway?" "That's right." "In such a long flight there can be an accidental divergence." "We did want to believe it was an accidental divergence in a complex machinery." "Even now I remember the day to the slightest detail." "Unfortunately, Rena's sickness is beyond doubt." "Rena was a space scout." "She flew the routes of the future expeditions in a scout rocket." "At first I thought the doctors had made a mistake." "Rena greeted me like an old friend, as usual." "But soon even I noticed a change in her behaviour." "Day 7." "The monkey is inert, moves less." "The number of leukocytes is 2000 per 1 cubic mm." "The red cells sedimentation rate is 20 mm per hour." "The doctors asserted that it was a radiation sickness." "Day 16." "The monkey is weak and inert, loss of appetite." "The sedimentation rate has increased to 40mm per hour." "Rena's illness was a heavy blow for all of us." "It was a warning about a serious threat in space." "Day 21." "The condition is grave." "Hemorrhages all over the body." "Leukocytes - hundreds per 1 mm." "Thrombocytes - 6-7 times less than normal." "Days passed." "Rena wasn't getting any better." "I didn't move a step from her." "I saw the life of the little monkey slowly fading away." "That little creature could have opened a way into space for humanity." "For she had already been in depths of the Universe." "Tens of millions of kilometres were separating Rena from our planet." "The devices were showing that her state was normal and that she felt just fine." "Scientist all over the world were watching the flight of the space scout." "Rena was in a place where nothing alive had ever been before." "Who knows?" "She could have been the first earthly creature to experience the unknown feeling of being in deep space." "There, at some point, the menacing dangers of space caught up with her." "Rena's rocket was getting close to the Sun, a mysterious world of fire, where countless and infinite transformations of matter take place." "In the depths of the Sun, under the temperature of tens of millions degrees, a powerful nuclear energy is born." "From here streams of radiation rush in different directions, filling all the space near the Sun." "Myriads of other suns send their radiation into space as well." "They're piercing through the whole space." "These deathly space currents reach our planet too." "But the Earth is very well protected from this baneful radiation by the atmosphere's enourmous armor." "The scientists have spent a good number of decades creating a material, only a few centimetres thick, which could resist the space radiation just as well as the atmosphere." "Nobody had any doubts about the safety of our material." "Our material used to stop the strongest radiation." "So why did Rena get sick?" "We rechecked everything hundreds of times, with the same results." "So why did Rena get sick?" "Would you be so kind as to outline the rocket's route?" "Outline?" "I can draw it in my sleep." "As you see, it was an elliptic curve." "The rocket passed by the Sun, then it crossed the orbits of Mercury and Venus." "And the level of solar activity during the flight?" "No significant changes." "And the intensity of cosmic radiation?" "Both earth-based stations and satellites showed normal intensity." "It's strange that the increase in radiation happened when the rocket was moving away from the Sun." "Usually the irradiation weakens in this case." "We have to assume then, that the source of radiation was inside the rocket." "The engine?" "As a medic, I must say that the engine's biological protection was designed with a great margin of safety." "The engine's protection can fail only due to a breakdown." "In our case the engine had returned fully intact." "There could be other sources of radiation in the cabin." "The batteries." "The indicators." "Their radiation, even combined, is absolutely harmless." "Attention." "Moon station calling." "Moon station speaking." "Think of Igor Petrovich Kalinin." "Think of his hypotheses about stray impassable zones." "Try to grasp what happened in the view of this hypothesis." "Could that scientist be right?" "Could it be that our material was under conditions in which it lost all of its protective potency?" "I made myself work." "At that time, so difficult for me, behind terse numbers and formulas, I couldn't help seeing their creators who'd done their part and entrusted us with a task to continue it." "How many generations dreamed of flying into space?" "I looked at Tsiolkovsky's portrait and remembered his words, which I knew from childhood:" "I believe that my dream - an interplanetary travels - will become a reality." "I believe it!" "That great dream reigned over the proud minds even in the face of death." "I looked at the portrait of Kibalchich, russian scientist and revolutionary," "And I thought I heard:" ""Soon I'll be executed." "But my dream must live on:" "my aeronautic machine!" "Perhaps it will take humanity into the free universe!" "I see it: the universe!" "It's waiting for a liberated man, whose mind is able to conquer infinite spaces, which separate him from magnificent knowledge." "I did a lot of thinking those days." "Never before had my mind worked so arduously." "Never before had I worked with such persistence and exasperation." "We exposed our material to the hardest trials." "I admit I almost lost hope." "But as usual, the solution came unexpectedly." "Many had studied that tape." "But only my friend noticed something strange." "With an intuition of a true scientist, he'd juxtaposed data which at first seemed unrelated." "The records of anti-meteorite cannon and the indication of Rena's nervous system, juxtaposed in time, showed that the exposure to radiation happened exactly when one of the shells was in the cannon." "Could it be so simple?" "No." "Well, what if you're right?" " Then out material..." " Was as reliable as always!" "You ignore the fact that the radiation from a single atomic charge couldn't be so harmful." "It just couldn't." "Of course it couldn't." " Which means?" " Which means... the charges were accumulated in the anti-meteorite device, never released!" "I get it..." "I get it now!" " The rocket got into..." " The zone of radioactive perturbation!" "Exactly." "So this is why the electronics failed." "My friend, I am approaching the most difficult part of my story." "Could I imagine that the day, which had started so well, would leave me deeply astounded." "Later that day, father asked me to come see him." "Despite late hours, he was not alone." "...we know the opinion of anti-meteorite group, and we can't disregard it." "Andrey, we found Kalinin's Sun satellite." "At last!" "The calculations centre managed to determine its orbit." "Andrey!" "Our friends from Pacific Institute have finished the construction of a new apparatus, which will be able to approach the Kalinin's satellite." "Moreover, it is equipped with all the necessary defences, including a reliable anti-meteorite cannon." "I share your enthusiasm." "But for unknown reasons, the electronics and the machinery fail in the zone with the satellite." "This seems to be the case when the machinery cannot replace a man." "So a man must fly." "And he will get the solar lab." "It's decided, then." "I'll fly." "Wait, Volodya." "Commander, I'm asking you to take my vast experience into consideration." "I thought so." "Even space stones can't scare you." "We have all the reasons to believe there exists a serious meteorite threat in the area of the supposed flight." "One man had already been there once." "With all due respect to anti-meteorite equipment and to your courage, my friends, still, we feel it our duty to show you the records of our last attempt." "Sergey Ivanovich?" "Could you show them, please?" "I recognized the box at once." "Memories of the family secret, almost forgotten after all the years, were stirred up once again." "Cinematic recorders are on." "The connection with the Earth was lost twenty seconds ago." "So..." "The zones, that I predicted, do exist!" "Continuing the search for my lab." "I'm almost sure, that I'll never return to the Earth." "An emergency dump of the film container is on." "The time of dumping will be registered and transmitted to the Earth." "Sergey..." "Please take care of my son Andrey." "Andrey that was your father." "Allow me to fly." "The lab should be retrieved by an experienced pilot." "I realized I won't be allowed to fly." "Sergey Ivanovich, did you want to say something?" "To retrieve the data collected by the lab over thirty years is only a part of the task." "The new equipment of the Pacific Institute will allow us to conduct extremely important additional research." "That's why I think a scientist should fly." "Very well," "I agree." "Thank you." "The first stage is off." "The second stage is off." "My friend, I was thinking about my father and his time." "At his times, soviet people made the first steps into the interplanetary space." "Since then, the Earth's satellites have done a lot of good." "They sent to the Earth messages about the movement in the atmosphere, which made it possible to predict weather." "They tracked the movements of ships in the oceans, they turned the solar energy into electricity for the Earth and the Moon." "I was flying through the area of the outermost satellites." "The satellites, hanging above the equator, were used for transmissions from the Moscow TV Centre to the world, but now they were doing a special task, connecting me with all the radio stations on Earth." " How's the connection?" " The connection works fine." "I hear you just fine." "Can you hear me?" "He's on the schedule." "I've reached the farthest point of the route of Rena's rocket." "The radio was the last link between me and the Earth." "It directed my flight." "And it was supposed to bring me closer to my father's solar lab." "Again some kind of gleaming." "Andrey!" "Switch to an autonomous control!" "The noise is getting stronger." "Space calling Earth!" "Space calling!" "This is Space, calling Earth!" "Earth!" "Earth!" "Earth!" "This is Space!" "Space!" "Space!" "Andrey!" "Andrey!" "Space!" "Andrey!" "Andrey!" "Space!" "Space!" "I was losing a sense of time." "I was fully aware that with every minute" "I was getting closer to an unknown danger." "Yes, that was the meteorites." "I shot them, with all the atomic charges that I had." "Suddenly the cannon was silent." "Its atomic fuel ran out." "I was disarmed." "But all the stones missed me." "It was a true miracle." "Increase the search area." "The velocity vector could change during the manoeuvres." "Either that zone is very big, or he's dragging it along." "In both cases it's..." "Space." "Space." "Respond." "Space!" "Andrey!" "Andrey!" "Finally I saw my father's lab." "It was a Sun's satellite, launched from the Earth many years ago." "The calculations were accurate." "I had only to turn on the front engines to slow down and to turn the rocket around the long axis." "In a few seconds I managed to put the lab into the cargo module." "Now I had to turn on the pulse engine to accelerate and escape from the zone impassable for the radio waves." "I was late." "A small meteorite damaged the atomic supply of the pulse engine." "Then all that's left is to escape in the emergency module with what's left of the atomic fuel." "But how can I leave the lab?" "I could send it through the cargo dumping system and transfer there all the fuel." "But that means to abandon the last hope of saving myself." "No." "I can't do that." "And what about the lab?" "For years it was gathering much needed data for humanity." "Does it mean that people would have to start all over again and to wait again for many years?" "And suddenly," "I'm perfectly calm." "The dream of my father, the dreams of many generations depend on my decision." "I turn the switch, transferring all the emergency fuel to the cargo dumping system." "I dumped the lab, so that it could enter the zone of radio contact." "I'm condemned to be a Sun's satellite for eternity." "For eternity!" "Attention!" "All the South centre stations are on!" "East and West stations are operating!" "Upper channel." "No connection." "Middle channel." "No connection." "Lower channel." "No connection." "We've just received the deciphering of the data from the Kalinin's lab!" "Our calculations were right!" "The big rocket's expedition is ready for the flight." "Sergey Ivanovich, congratulations on your success!" "Upper channel." "No connection." "Middle channel." "No connection." "Lower channel." "No connection." "I lose consciousness from time to time." "and when I wake up," "I'm tormented by the thought that I could miss the signal from the Earth." "Some kind of signal..." "Although I had no idea what it was supposed to be." "That means the autonomous control isn't working?" "Yes." "We can return him only if we restore the connection with the rocket's main control." "Attention!" "Five minutes ago all the North stations reported a start of the procedure." "The zone lets some of the radio waves through!" "The rocket's in the zone of radio contact!" "The rocket's in the zone of radio contact!" "Can you hear me, Andrey?" "You're out of the zone!" "You're coming home!" "The radio connection is back!" "My friend," "I was only doing my duty." "But I couldn't imagine at that moment that my efforts would be multiplied hundredfold by the will and energy of the people of the new world, who'd open the way into the space!" "I'm on Earth again!" "On our Earth!" "The end"