this week two guards were killed as militant gunmen set off for explosives. and searches rounded on the big drug firms that an international aids conference in vienna questioning studies into the spread of this he's accused from a cd johnson to profit from treatment. but next we follow two very different stories in the race to conquer space. that was in the sixteenth century. once there lived a chinese nobleman by the name of one who is most cherished ambition was to go to the moon using the resources available seven powder kegs to a bamboo then he put on his best clothes and ignited the barrels. when the smoke cleared after the explosion there was neither a trace of the nor of who. history is rich with ill fated attempts to get into space but in the twentieth century to remarkable men did come to the skies

but this time around they used rocket engines rather than exploding armchairs to propel them into. their names then. they were the architects of the american and russian space programs the two great eternal rivals in the battle to reach out to space. made their first attempts to reach for the stars in their childhood as a boy in the soviet union designed simple gliders but as time went by he came up with a more sophisticated look at propelled craft as for venice at the age of twelve he created a prototype rocket by equipping a crate with fireworks he also. built a wagon that he launched a news channel and apparently this wagon any ad had. rockets he had made on it and it knighted that ran down the main street of his

hometown and. who was von braun's long time private secretary says venet attracted police attention many times for firing things into the air nowadays buckbee often takes people on a tour of the space museum in huntsville where each exhibit is related to von braun . but the best storyteller of. exploits is his only daughter natalia she wrote about him in three volumes of memoirs simply titled my father. with these this is a picture of the first soviet rocket it was launched on august seventeenth one thousand nine hundred thirty three though it spent only eight hundred seconds in the air in the quiet altitude of four hundred meters it was a spectacular success going to. moscow in the one nine hundred thirty s. was a time of daring ambition and breathtaking endeavor it's one group of young scientists infusing as

a model they have to try and turn fantasy into reality they were so desperately short of money that they had to hire a tram to take this second rocket to its launch pad. was the driving force behind the team researching propulsion they kept saying to each other we will go to mars yes we will. rested for high treason in nineteen thirty eight but for many years he didn't know why he protested his innocence despite brutal questioning and only broke down when interrogators showed him a picture of his daughter saying she'd be orphaned if he didn't confess ten years in prison at the height of stalin's purges. i was five years old when my mother and i went to see him i did not know he had been arrested i had been told that he was away because he was the pilot when we entered small room a warden came in through another door. i said papa how could you possibly lend your airplane in that small courtyard at that moment the warden chipped in you know dear

landing here is no problem but getting out of here is very difficult. after his person turned off was moved to russia's remote east where inmates were forced to mine for gold company mates died every day. dropped to just forty five kilos during his time that he lost more than half his teeth due to scale but he survived because stunning needed rocket scientists for the soviet union's meteor shield. was released six years later he told his daughter wife. and mother about his life in the camp only once he asked them not to bring the subject up again and to steer clear of gold ornaments. served his term in a good light then of von braun was in nazi germany rising through the ranks on the

s.s. command he started work on a secret project after had ordered his scientists to create a weapon capable of hitting distant targets. after several setbacks the infamous v. two rocket was created it was the world's first ballistic missile ready to fire. and this is an old house in a small provincial town in central germany it's a place of simple beauty and quiet gentle life. the town also has a special museum the wagon outside the entrance is like those used to bring thousands of people to this tranquil place in one thousand nine hundred three to

a notorious concentration camp and most of the exhibits though are underground. the v. two was made here at this secret some to re-implement its workman with inmates from the metal back door of labor camp which was a part of involved now we're entering the original tunnel a see huge tunnel as you can see with about twelve mistress. and this model you can see two. crossed. a b and forty six cross tunnels built by concentration camp prisoners in the last years of the war if you look down here you can see an origin. and which was moved from the behind here to show it to visitors. the prisoners spent half

a year on the ground without seeing so much as a sliver of daylight at the time they didn't know the purpose of the tunnels but they later realized that they had been putting together a monstrous weapon designed to destroy their homes countries and loved ones they had to sleep in bets with thought any equipment only on the wooden nothing. the cemetery conditions were catastrophic people died after just two will three months of intolerable work the dead were replaced with new inmates soviet people made up one third of the dora prison population. the b two b. ones were unique weapons because these were the only weapons where more people died building them then people died by using these weapons. half of the six thousand rockets made to the underground plants during the eighteen months

of his existence were faulty the inmates did all they could to make sure the weapons remained on the ground they breached production ruse and use defective components. thirty five thousand inmates died during the plant's lifetime. cost six human lives. without doubt venom von braun paid several visits to the facility when he went down into the tunnels he saw hundreds of dead inmates but apparently. did not seem fazed. much later his face appeared on the cover of time magazine he shook hands with president kennedy and was awarded medals his impassioned glorification of american democracy came much later too but in may nine hundred forty five s.s. major was faced with a choice. so. he

was reflecting with his colleagues what to do after the german defeat and in forty four they decided most of them decided to go to the americans. surprisingly the americans welcomed their former enemies despite the fact that a new conflict was on the horizon the cold war. many of my. friends who flew with russians their first job was to learn how to fly an airplane to go bomb russia the american people looked at these these people the local people anyway as being able to assist us in developing a new system for defense of the country the americans won the space race but did we win the space race when you look at the fathers of space in the last century you had one of the east germans and then you look at the russians have surrogate pavlovitch carlo he had spent time in the gulag and some of his first designs that

he did on aviation where we're from the gulag. but. was eventually released from prison and was no longer an enemy of the soviet people in fact he became his country's protector and made chief designer of a ballistic missile called item number one. even lost his identity and was now a top secret somebody working on a top secret. to get a mind when they went to germany they started to study german rocket technology then said again was first so long and able to perform his job ended up diving deeper into the work he loved so much. would be. made a faithful replica of the feat to rocket on stalin's orders although it was successfully launched realized that the rocket was not good enough he was sure he could make an even better one and he did it was called the to kill.

the soviet union in the united states when neck and neck in the construction of long range missiles but that changed in one nine hundred fifty seven in the midst of the cold war the arms race became the space race. on the morning of october fifth hundred years in the united states began picking up on signals from space a couple of hours later president eisenhower was told about the russian more inch of earth's first satellite he cut short his vacation stock exchange shares took a shop down to exactly what the russians have launched into space was totally unclear we couldn't even figure out what sputnik meant we kept referring to it as a bomb and we were trying to write a headline right soviet union put a bomb in space they said oh no don't call

a bomb though we eventually realized it was a scientific satellite. the world sputnik was so. to become familiar with the english language large numbers of people stayed away from work to try and hear the peeping sound from the satellite they gathered on rooftops in the hope of seeing a little spot of manmade light blinking up in the sky all they did was take this small extra payload on top of a long range ballistic missile and sent him into orbit and then someone had the idea to do the b. so you would hear it and that transformed the world as we know it. the women's has changed for example had to strike this came into fashion and. only a handful of people even the sputnik being designed by sergei cut off his name did not appear anyway it was soviet leader nikita khrushchev the one. with our sputnik asserting the earth and the waiting for american and other sputniks to

show up side by side with it before commonwealth of sputnik's. von braun's attempt to launch the first us satellite ended in the van gogh explained. when you. called my father to tell him that he should launch another sputnik in time for the anniversary of the one nine hundred seventeen october revolution which was close at hand but people had gone on vacation and had to be summoned back. khrushchev wanted something more than just another sputnik she wanted something entirely new. given less than a month to invent one that would need the blueprints no quality control the whole enterprise depended on trust throughout his career it was always looking for people willing to forgo food and sleep and work through the night. is

a psychologist from russian space research center star city he used to work under. he was a great man it was enough for him to look at you and he got a wealth of information even though he was a freak with his subordinates he had a very delicate soul. it was a four legged cosmonaut that was the first living creature to head towards the stars a dog called lika when she was launched into space there were tears in her eyes time magazine called her the world's most lonely and miserable dog that was true it was a one way ticket for like it a monument was unveiled in moscow to mark the fiftieth anniversary of a space mission. but there is this monument to commemorate the dogs greatest. people bring treats you know what would look someone has even brought a candy here for the. show some even bring salsa just for the lovely puppy and i

mean. at that time it was impossible to retrieve the sputnik from all base people around the world accused the soviet union of animal cruelty but like his sacrifice was of undoubted benefit to science scientists were unsure whether the biological functions could work in zero gravity i mean there are so many things we take for granted today but with the heart pump in zero gravity would blood flow and zero gravity would your mind you know be alert in zero gravity meanwhile the americans too would launching animals into the stratosphere notably monkeys they were put under anaesthetic but they also died in their missions. but eventually there was a happy ending with two dogs called falcon and. both were well behaved. just to stay became fitness even so one day flight was problem free and they became the

first creatures ever to safely return from obey it. well sophia mongrels one instant fame found almost something the better pedigree could ever dream of soon after returning to gave birth to six healthy pups nikita khrushchev gave one of them to president kennedy's daughter caroline it was a constant reminder to the rest of the soviet space program had defeated him in the first round of the space race. every month we give you the future we help you understand how to get there and want to bring the best in science and technology from across russia and around the world to join us for its technology update on our g.

line. which brightened if you want sound from finest impressions. means for instance on t.v. dot com. fifty. five fifty. five. his snow white smile conquered millions of hops he was a welcome guest around the world and the epitome of mankind's dreams. the first man in space. i'm. told was among those who wanted to take part in the national celebration. for his cause god from the red square.

recognized. me to promise when the nobel committee asked to disclose the name of the chief designer who made it possible for the first sputnik and forgotten to go into space who showed said the entire nation created the advanced technology . never complained about the fact that his health and being affected by the prison camp all the public could not associate him with the space program he had no time for that he was busy turning his dreams into reality. love dirigo guarin as though he were his own son. yuri gagarin complemented each other as personalities they were competent all with each other sometimes they didn't even need to talk the first u.s. astronauts alan shepard went into space a month after go and spend only fifteen minutes there and had spent two hours in orbit. braun was clearly losing the race he was tired of being

coming in second he was it was pretty well i think discussed it with with the system the government system that that we were operating under not realizing that the russians were really technology smart. was very much in the public eye he often appeared on television and even helped disney sell the ambition of space travel so the american public he was the first salesman. if we were to stop today organized and well supported space program i believe a practical passenger rocket could be built and tested within ten years. the press also joined in on the space race. and american newspapers claimed that eleven cosmonauts went into space before guarin did and never return to earth alive they

were known as the so-called missing cosmonauts. even gave their names to lend credibility to the stories. i was married to one of the names of. these homes. under the east chestnut tree it was a form of relaxation. it was a tester he often told her about how he had spent six months in a camp into the ocean he was compelled to live high in the mountains where there was a severe shortage of oxygen and he went through training in a fast spinning centrifuge so that they were asked to press a button if the speed was too much for them but they never did because they had an overpowering desire to serve their country in space exploration chose to ignore

this train so that they would be allowed to go into space. needless to say. he was stunned by a newspaper report claiming he was dead. he immediately called his mother to tell he was ok then he supposedly missing cosmonauts wrote an article for a soviet newspaper headlined faces gentleman. i saw it as something of a joke they even liked it because they meant somebody knew them and had put them on the map so to speak. husband died in two thousand. thousand and two but it had nothing to do with any fabricated space experiment. there was a time when the me who wanted to be a minerals a special kind of cosmonaut soon after good god in space flight so they kind of announced he was going to draw on engineers at his enterprise to put together a group of cosmonauts their job would be to assemble three parts of

a giant ship one obeys the spacecraft would then head to miles from there it was kind of great dream von braun's ambition of the time didn't extend beyond reaching the moon. spoke of the lunar race was an invention in reality there was no lunar rates. shows off his secret notebook it contains drafts and other details relating to the mas project. i put down it would sergei had sold me and launch to mars was scheduled for early one nine hundred seventy four. if his notes are anything to go by so did not start on a new no project until one thousand nine hundred sixty four but von braun had been working on it for three years following president kennedy's announcements of plans to conquer the moon. but was compelled to focus his attention on the moon instead of mars and other planets he's known to have regarded the planets as his priority objective to ship shit your my nineteen sixty four who shot had the illusion that

we might outstrip the americans. if we failed to land on the moon then at least we could fly around it and head of them that soon might be nice in political terms before. khrushchev surprisingly declared don't give the moon away to the americans . did not believe he could outpace phone broom too much time had already been wasted it was venner von braun's heyday. we raised the flag the american flag on the surface of the moon congrats. i really believe that the soviet union drove the us to the moon. in our day and we did that in the sixty's and i think it was because there was serious competition between the two countries .

didn't get to see strong take the first step on the lunar surface he died in one thousand nine hundred sixty six during summer. his anonymity died with him and his identity was finally. triggering a wave of. monuments and plaques one failed in his own even. after reading. that he never realized the work could be done by just one person. my father like to say that people can travel into space issued by train he was absolutely sure that outer space was not empty and people must live and work there he said. seeing americans and russians in space together. in one hundred seventy five the so

he. put an end to the space race. less than five meters. i like. most of all like the trickle of chocolates all of this. part of the project and often visits this museum he remembers every minute of his mission the food they talked about and how they welcomed the crew aboard which is a good suit vapor labels from balls ols off bald go with us. and when we were up

there i randomly pasted them on a couple of cubes and one of them turned out to be filled with borsch and the other with some kind of a tomato paste. and it went american astronauts stafford and dick slayton said sound on the table. i show them that you and you know yeah good idea they said. today new cosmonauts a set to go into space one by one of the countries are creating their own space programs india and japan and china has already launched its own cosmonauts into space even wealthy tourists pay for a trip to the stars just filling prophecy. maybe one day the time may come when space flights will be routine excursions curious travelers might take pictures of themselves against the backdrop of an extinct volcano tough

to venice on or in front of a crater to set off. the

latest news on the week's top stories from ati not normally high temperatures break new records in russia but the intense heat is claiming lives as at least three hundred drown trying to cool off this week to. the un's highest court says cost of his independence is legal but several countries claim the ruling is a political display of double standards. terrorists target russia's north caucasus as militants storm a power plant killing two dogs and detonating four bombs. vienna's international aids conference talks medical breakthroughs critics label it a pharmaceutical marketing fad with drug firms prioritizing profit treatment.