Original subtitles

- Throughout time,

governments and the people who work for them

have done strange and even terrible things

in the name of national interest,

especially in the race to control space.

Tonight, the daring theft of an enemy spacecraft

at the start of the Cold War.

- There are so many places where this could fail.

At worst, you're going to be caught in the act

and they're going to shoot you.

- The plan to nuke the moon.

- If the Russians really are planning

to hit the moon with a nuclear weapon, then guess what?

America needs to beat them to the punch.

[dramatic music]

- And a shocking cover-up of the space age's worst disaster.

- 70 coffins have been delivered

to a Russian space center.

Something catastrophic has taken place.

- It's time to bring the secrets of deep space to light.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

[suspenseful music]

- It's 1959.

The U.S. and the Soviet Union

are locked in fierce competition

on Earth and in space.

So when the CIA gets the chance

to steal some Russian technological secrets,

the agency doesn't think twice.

♪ ♪

- The summer of 1959, the Cold War was still

very much an active conflict,

but things were thawing just a little bit.

Both sides decided that they should do a cultural exchange.

First stop is New York.

The Soviet Union mounts a large display

of some of their main technical advances.

- What's particularly interesting

to the American government is a display

of the Soviet lunar spacecraft.

- The Soviets are blazing ahead in the space race.

In January 1959, they launch the first spacecraft

to leave Earth's orbit.

- From the Americans' perspective,

the Soviets can do no wrong.

And they want to find out how they're so successful.

- So American spies are sent to the exhibition

to check out a replica of the Luna.

But when they get to the display,

they're hit with a pretty big realization.

What they're looking at is not a model.

It's the actual spacecraft

that is being presented to the public.

♪ ♪

They're presented with this incredible opportunity

to get up close to the Soviets' crown jewel.

- If American space engineers

can somehow take a look inside,

they could work out the secret of Soviet success.

- There's just no way to inspect the Luna

while it's in New York.

It's guarded 24/7 by KGB officers.

But the Soviet exhibition is on tour.

It's moving to Mexico City,

where the CIA have a much better chance

of getting a closer look.

♪ ♪

- The Americans decide to try the unthinkable.

The question is how do you steal something

the size of a school bus from under the nose of the KGB?

- The CIA come up with a plan.

Wait for the exhibition to finish.

Distract the guards.

And intercept the Luna while it's in transit.

♪ ♪

- And if they can get the truck with the Luna in it,

somehow separate from everything else,

they just might be able to take a look.

- And then return it without anyone realizing.

This is an insane plot.

You're trying to steal a spaceship from the KGB.

♪ ♪

If you do get caught,

they have grounds to shoot you on the spot.

♪ ♪

- It sounds like the plot of a Hollywood heist movie.

But on December 15th, the CIA makes it happen.

- The exhibition is over.

The exhibits are loaded onto trucks

to be stored overnight at a train depot.

♪ ♪

CIA already had operatives in place

that were positioned perfectly

to assist in the kidnapping of the Lunik.

♪ ♪

- They make sure the Luna is on the last truck,

and it heads straight into rush-hour traffic.

♪ ♪

The guards have been working hard.

They're following this truck, but they want the day to end.

They want to clock out.

- There's a farewell party at their hotel,

and nobody wants to miss out.

But what they don't know is that this big blowout

has been organized by the CIA,

because the plan is to keep the KGB distracted all night

with beautiful women and rivers of tequila.

- The Soviet guards leave the Luna with the truck driver.

What they don't know is that

he's working with the Americans.

- The CIA has kidnapped the spaceship

and the plan is working perfectly.

With the Luna now in their possession,

the CIA divert its route.

They've commandeered a private salvage yard for the night

that's fenced off from prying eyes.

♪ ♪

- So while the KGB are having a party,

the American engineers have the opportunity

to get their hands on modern technology

that's devised by the Russians.

♪ ♪

- They only have until dawn to learn everything they can

about the Soviet space ship.

- The men take their shoes off so they don't leave

any kind of debris and they get right inside.

♪ ♪

They start taking it apart bolt by bolt.

♪ ♪

Photographing everything.

[whirring and clicking]

- It was a chance for them to steal as much information

as they needed to boost the American space program.

♪ ♪

- But there's a huge problem.

♪ ♪

The Soviets have placed a tamper-proof seal

inside some of the most important parts.

In order to photograph it,

they're going to have to break this seal.

♪ ♪

The Russians are going to know that they were inside the Luna.

♪ ♪

- The operatives have no choice but to pull in a favor.

- So what they do

is get a local forger to remake it overnight.

- The forger must turn around an exact copy of the seal

in a few hours.

♪ ♪

- By daybreak, the Luna is back in one piece.

The Soviet guards roll out of the party

nursing these killer hangovers with no clue

that their prize exhibit has spent the night with the enemy.

♪ ♪

- It's incredible to think that this whole thing worked.

- The Luna continues its global tour,

with the Soviets none the wiser.

The question is

did the heist advance America's space program?

According to CIA documents declassified in 1994...

The answer is yes.

- The Americans used the intel

to calculate the weight of the spacecraft

and from that, they can work out the size and weight

of the missile the Soviets are using to launch it.

- It's just the kind of detailed intelligence

the Americans need to blast ahead in the space race.

♪ ♪

- And on August 10th,

they launch a CORONA spy satellite

that orbits 17 times around the Earth.

♪ ♪

- The superpower space race becomes a sprint

to land a man on the lunar surface.

But both nations have other plans for the moon

that are so shocking they remain secret for 40 years.

♪ ♪

- Throughout the 1950s and '60s,

we lived under constant fear of a nuclear attack.

You are, every day, being fed a steady diet of

you need to be terrified

that the world's going to end next week.

♪ ♪

There are a lot of outrageous headlines

during this time period.

The one that caught the attention

of the American public the most was...

"Latest Red Rumor: They'll Bomb the Moon."

♪ ♪

- It's a headline that just looks like

it came straight out of a comic book.

The news has the White House in a panic.

Are the Russians really going to go through with this,

or is it just a wild rumor?

♪ ♪

- For the American military, this is no joke.

It responds in 1958 by launching secret Project A119.

♪ ♪

- The U.S. Air Force calls upon 12 of the country's leading

astrophysicists to take part in a highly sensitive assignment.

- The team includes a young graduate named Carl Sagan,

in the days before he was a world-renowned astronomer.

- The plan is simple.

If the Russians really are planning

to hit the moon with a nuclear weapon, then guess what?

America needs to beat them to the punch.

♪ ♪

One side is planning something insane,

the other side has to match it.

♪ ♪

- But the U.S. has a challenge.

There's no point in nuking the moon if no one can see it.

- The moon has no atmosphere.

That blast will not produce the iconic mushroom cloud

that we expect from a nuclear explosion.

- They come up with a solution.

Detonate the bomb along the moon's terminator line,

the border between where the shadow meets the light.

- So that bright flash of light will be visible

to the naked eye and the resulting cloud of dust

and debris that's kicked up by the nuclear weapon

is going to be illuminated by the sun.

♪ ♪

- With a key problem solved, the American team is ready

in the event the president says go.

- In 1958, in perhaps the most surreal contest

of the space race, American and Soviet scientists

compete to hit the moon with a nuclear bomb.

The question is

will either side blow up the Earth in the process?

[suspenseful music]

- If the nuclear payload is too heavy for the rocket,

the rocket could fall back to Earth and the bomb detonates.

♪ ♪

The big event suddenly becomes a tragedy on a massive scale

and possibly the start of a nuclear war.

♪ ♪

- But the risk of apocalypse isn't enough

to make the U.S. pull the plug.

- The team puts forward this plan

to use a W25 warhead, which is a smaller device,

but crucially, it will still be visible from Earth.

- Problem solved. All systems are ready to go.

- The science works.

Are they actually going to do this?

♪ ♪

- At the last minute, there's one more concern

that throws plans into a tailspin.

The nuclear fallout could contaminate

the moon's surface for years.

♪ ♪

- Which means nobody can go up there.

♪ ♪

And that's a big problem

because landing a man on the moon is looking

more and more scientifically possible.

- The U.S. realizes that stepping on the moon

is a bigger win than blowing it up.

In January 1959, Project A119 is canceled.

And the Soviets also come to their senses.

♪ ♪

That doesn't mean the space race is over.

The next goal?

Be the first to set up a permanent base on the moon.

It won't be easy, but in 1959, the U.S. military

launches Project Horizon to accomplish the goal.

♪ ♪

- The moon is an extremely hostile environment.

The temperature range is huge.

In the sunlight, it can reach up to 225 degrees Fahrenheit,

while in the dark, it can drop to minus 243.

♪ ♪

- Plus, the thin atmosphere means

that there is no protection from cosmic radiation

and there's no protection from meteorites.

So the safest place is beneath the lunar surface.

- This moon base is planned to consist

of an underground network of tubes.

♪ ♪

and they serve as living quarters,

storage, lab space, and the entire facility

will be powered by nuclear reactors.

- The move itself will be a massive operation.

♪ ♪

- The proposal calls for about 147 Saturn launches

to get not only the materials up to the moon,

but also the things that will become the space station

and the crew themselves.

♪ ♪

This will take ten years to do and cost $6 billion.

- In today's money,

that's $64 billion.

$64 billion.

Why would the government

consider spending an unthinkable sum of money

building an outpost on the moon?

- Classified documents released in 2014

provide the answer.

- The Americans know that the Soviets intend to build

their own moon base,

and they do not want to be neighbors with these guys.

♪ ♪

The Soviets have the momentum in this space race,

and there's a sense that the moon is up for grabs,

and they want to claim it.

♪ ♪

- The Soviet initiative is called Zvezda,

which translates as star.

- The Soviet designs are very similar to Project Horizon.

But there's a little bit more emphasis on comforts.

- They put in video screens displaying Russian vistas

to comfort homesick cosmonauts.

- The Soviets build a prototype

and they stick a group of cosmonauts in it

for a year as a simulation.

♪ ♪

- But the U.S. is planning more than a lunar land grab.

♪ ♪

The true purpose of Project Horizon

is to turn the moon into an American fortress.

♪ ♪

- The first one to colonize the moon

could also be the first one to weaponize it.

♪ ♪

The moon's distance from the Earth

makes an outpost difficult to attack and easy to defend.

♪ ♪

- They even have plans for armed combat on the moon.

I'm talking about astronauts armed with weapons

on the surface of the moon shooting it out.

- During the Cold War, it was a competition to dream up

what's the worst thing that our enemy can do

and how can we counter it?

And it just led to doing crazy things

or planning crazy things.

- Fortunately, lunar combat never breaks out.

In 1959, Project Horizon is shelved

by a newly-formed agency, NASA.

- The dream of militarization of the moon

is over, at least for now.

- It's 1960, and as the contest for space continues,

the Soviets want to land a knockout punch.

They build a rocket powered by a new kind of fuel

called devil's venom.

It will end in tragedy.

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

- In October of 1960, an American news story breaks

about a Soviet rocket engineer's death.

- Mitrofan Nedelin is a highly decorated

military commander and he's known as the chief of rockets.

According to the Soviet press release,

he died the previous day in an air accident.

- As Russia mourns an important leader,

the CIA investigates his death.

♪ ♪

But it finds no record of a Soviet air crash.

And the secret report is full of suspicious gaps.

♪ ♪

- According to the report,

something catastrophic happened.

♪ ♪

- 70 coffins have been delivered

to a Russian space center.

- It's clear the Soviet space program

has experienced a disaster.

But what kind?

- Rumors start bouncing around about Nedelin's death.

Some say that it was an air crash.

Some say that it was a fatal explosion.

- The one thing that everyone can agree on

is that it happened in southern Kazakhstan,

the location of the Soviets' biggest missile launch site.

- The events remain a mystery for 39 years.

Then a former space officer

decides it's finally safe to come clean.

♪ ♪

- At the Russian Cosmodrome, Chief Nedelin is developing

a top-secret new missile, the R-16.

Now, it's a space rocket,

but its purpose has nothing to do with space exploration.

♪ ♪

- The R-16 is basically a super weapon.

- It's actually an intercontinental

ballistic missile designed

to hit long-range targets.

The weapon enters space,

then falls back to Earth

to strike its targets.

- It has a range of almost 7,000 miles,

carrying a 5- to 6-megaton nuclear warhead.

This could decimate the United States from Russia.

♪ ♪

The Soviet Union wants to launch this missile

for the first time on the 43rd anniversary

of the Russian Revolution.

♪ ♪

It's all symbolism, but the Soviets wanted

to send shockwaves about Russian power around the world

with this new weapon.

- It's never been tested and Nedelin is under

increasing pressure to launch it.

♪ ♪

- Nedelin has hundreds of engineers

working at this ferocious pace to meet this deadline.

It's a dangerous environment.

The R-16 requires a highly volatile fuel

that's known as devil's venom.

It's so corrosive that

as soon as you put it in the fuel tanks,

it starts to literally eat away at the rocket.

♪ ♪

- As the test date approaches,

there are problems with the rocket,

but Soviet scientists don't want to admit failure.

They want to hit this deadline,

so they keep pressing forward.

♪ ♪

- On the morning of the test, the 100-foot-high R-16

is fueled with devil's venom, ready for launch.

Things start to go wrong right away.

- Part of the electrics short-circuit.

Chief Nedelin and his staff

are supposed to leave the launch area.

- They're just milling around the launch pad and the missile,

violating every safety protocol,

and the missile begins to spit out sparks

and then it begins to spit out devil's venom.

♪ ♪

- What happens next is captured on film,

but the shocking images are suppressed for 30 years.

♪ ♪

[rocket roaring]

♪ ♪

- The electrical issue sparks the fuel,

which bursts the fuel tanks

and triggers this Earth-shattering explosion.

♪ ♪

- Anyone near the rocket was killed instantly.

Anyone else had to try to escape

this mass of flames and toxic gas.

But they were all trapped in the area by a security fence.

♪ ♪

Some workers burned to death.

Others died from inhaling fumes.

It was an absolute disaster.

- Chief Nedelin, along with many important engineers,

are killed.

It's a horrific failure.

♪ ♪

- In the aftermath, survivors and relatives of the dead

are ordered to describe the tragedy as a plane crash.

It's one of the many fatal accidents that affected

the space program, covered up by the government.

♪ ♪

- The exact number of people who lost their lives

while working on the Soviet space program

remains unknown to this day.

♪ ♪

- For six years, the U.S. and the Soviet Union

invest billions on deep space competition.

Then, in 1963, the U.S. seems to change tack.

The Air Force announces the first-ever space lab.

Called the Manned Orbiting Laboratory,

or MOL, it will be launched to benefit all humanity.

♪ ♪

- The U.S. develop and test a two-man operated

scientific research station.

It's designed to remain in orbit

150 miles above the Earth's surface,

is 60 feet long, with a laboratory and a living space.

♪ ♪

- A program designed to evaluate

man's performance in space over extended periods of time.

- The design team comes up with incredible innovations.

- They develop the next generation

of flexible space suits.

♪ ♪

The laboratory simulator becomes part

of NASA's future projects,

as does the MOL's waste generation system.

- The individuals who trained on the MOL

all later went on to be the pioneers

who manned some of the early Space Shuttle missions.

♪ ♪

- The project's greatest technical breakthrough

is its own giant camera.

♪ ♪

- The camera is the size of a car.

♪ ♪

It uses an external mirror that is as tall as a man.

- It is described as the perfect tool

for conducting scientific studies of Earth.

- Things like tracking tectonic plates or air pollution

or studying the polar caps.

- All to benefit humankind.

The benefits seem endless.

♪ ♪

In November 1966,

the first prototype is ready for test launch.

- All launch commit lights are green.

T-minus 10 seconds.

♪ ♪

- The MOL enters orbit and remains in contact

with the Earth for 30 days.

♪ ♪

It's a huge success.

♪ ♪

- But behind all the excitement

hides a stunning secret.

In 2015, the military declassifies documents that

expose the science project as an elaborate cover story.

♪ ♪

The real intent of the camera, to spy on the Russians.

- Since 1960, the American military

has been monitoring Russia's nuclear capabilities

from surveillance satellites.

- Photographs from space

of value to strategic intelligence

completely revolutionized the intelligence process.

[camera whirs]

- After the cameras take the pictures,

the film needs to be processed back on Earth.

By that point, it could be too late to react.

- What good is intel on an enemy attack

if it arrives too late to respond?

One solution is a spy camera operated by astronauts.

- The crew on the MOL could actually direct the camera

at exactly what they wanted to take a picture of.

♪ ♪

- They can report what they are looking at,

and then the crew back on Earth

knows exactly what photos they'll be getting.

- From its orbit between 150 to 170 miles,

it can resolve places and objects 9,000 feet across.

That's easily big enough to get detail

from military installations

and other really important sites

that the United States is trying to spy on.

- The camera works, but at a huge price.

The MOL costs a whopping $13 billion.

- It was too expensive, and the evolution of technology

was making modern day satellites better equipped

to carry out the same operation

that the MOL was supposed to carry out.

- The MOL is mothballed after just one flight.

But there is one more twist in this tale.

The cover story that the MOL will make discoveries

for the benefit of the planet ultimately comes true.

Technology from the MOL would be used in "Skylab,"

America's first space station.

Launched in May 1973,

it proves humans can live in space for weeks at a time.

♪ ♪

- The space race was never just about

getting a man on the moon.

It was about fighting wars on Earth.

In 1966, the Soviets test a weapon of mass destruction

that can dodge America's early warning system

by using the physics of space.

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

By 1961, the U.S. is protecting itself

by building a network of giant radars

that can detect incoming

weapons launched from Russia.

- If the Soviets are going to attack the United States

via missile launches, they're going to fly

those missiles on the most direct route,

and that's over the North Pole.

♪ ♪

- The radar system gives the U.S. a big advantage.

It has time to respond.

- It would give them 20 minutes.

20 minutes doesn't sound like much,

but that would be enough for us

to get a retaliatory strike underway.

♪ ♪

- For the Soviets, this warning system poses a big problem.

They no longer have the capability

to unleash a secret, decisive attack.

♪ ♪

- Now the Soviets need to find a new way to attack.

- If they could launch an attack from someplace else,

the Americans would not be able to detect them

and we won't be prepared for it,

and so they come up with this brilliant idea.

- The Soviets have already

launched satellites into space.

Why not do the same with a nuclear bomb?

- And it's called the

Fractional Orbital Bombardment System.

♪ ♪

- The idea is simple and terrifying.

The missile enters orbit, circles the planet,

and can be directed to strike in any direction at any time.

- The way the system works is it's launched into orbit,

and then it just waits.

♪ ♪

Once the signal is given to attack...

♪ ♪

It leaves orbit, enters Earth's atmosphere,

and then it releases its warheads.

♪ ♪

And what's so deadly is that

they're very close to the target.

- It could drop a nuclear weapon on us at any point.

And in this way, the Soviet Union would

win the chess game and get checkmate.

- That is terrifying.

♪ ♪

- At first, the Soviets need to test to see if it works.

- In the bleak midwinter in the Kazakhstan desert,

the Soviets launched their brand-new missile.

- It's programmed to land 4,000 miles away in Kamchatka.

To avoid destroying Northeast Russia,

the tests are conducted without a warhead.

- The FOBS tests begin to go wrong immediately.

The missiles go off target, they break apart in the air,

they rain down on parts of the Earth.

- The embarrassing setbacks threatened

to derail the project.

- The mechanics of rerouting the missile

into its attack position are difficult to perfect.

- But the Soviets keep pushing

and the missile improves with each launch.

In the summer of 1967,

American spies deliver a highly classified report

with news the Pentagon has been dreading.

♪ ♪

The secret orbital missile actually works.

♪ ♪

- The successful tests travel across the South Pole,

but most importantly,

they dodge those Arctic radar systems.

♪ ♪

- The test is non-nuclear, but it provides a powerful

proof of concept that they can do it.

And if they decide to do it,

what they're going to swing toward the Earth

is a 5-megaton strategic nuclear weapon.

♪ ♪

5 megatons is not going to look pretty

if it's directed at Southern California.

♪ ♪

- In November 1967, the Soviets unveil their new missile

at a Red Square parade,

announcing they can deliver a nuke to anywhere in the world.

Their secret weapon is no longer a secret.

- The Soviets have created something so frightening

that the UN steps in.

♪ ♪

In 1967, both superpowers signed the Outer Space Treaty,

which prohibits the placement of nuclear weapons in orbit.

But that doesn't stop the Soviets

finding new opportunities,

like arming a space station with a secret cannon.

♪ ♪

- The Soviet military is in the middle of developing

a space station, the Almaz,

and they want it in orbit as soon as possible.

But NASA is ahead of the game with the imminent launch

of their "Skylab" space station.

- You've got Russian space stations,

American space stations.

What happens if they eventually meet?

And then if they meet,

what happens if that contact is not friendly?

- The Soviets don't take any chances.

They set up a highly classified military project

to prepare for enemy attacks in space

by arming the "Almaz 2" space station

with a fully-functioning space cannon.

♪ ♪

- They approach a Soviet weapons designer

to create a gun that can fire in space.

- Normal artillery is really heavy.

And weight is at a premium in space flight,

so they needed something a lot lighter.

♪ ♪

- The Soviet space engineers

decide to adapt an autocannon, the Rikhter R-23.

It's the fastest firing single-barrel cannon

ever used by the Soviet Air Force,

dispatching 2,500 rounds per minute.

- The R-23 was designed

for the first Soviet supersonic bomber,

so it's already compact and lightweight.

It's also brutally effective.

[thumping gunfire]

- You've got 23-millimeter rounds that are

punching these holes from a mile away.

[thumping gunfire]

So if it can do that on Earth,

it's going to do enough to cause serious damage

to any American space station that tries to approach.

- But fitting a gun to a spaceship

is a little different from fitting one to a plane.

- On a plane, you have a rotating turret,

and the gun can be turned to follow the target

and to shoot it down from any angle.

But the engineers can't figure a way to achieve this

in a space vehicle.

- The cannon has to be fixed

in place, so for the operator

to line up the target,

they'd have to pivot

the entire space station,

which is a big problem if the target is moving at speed.

- And there's another challenge.

When the cannon fires...

it's going to recoil.

♪ ♪

- And that's a huge problem in space.

When it's fired in zero gravity,

the recoil could inadvertently

force the orbiting space station well off course.

♪ ♪

- There's only one way to be sure.

In 1974, the Soviets conduct a secret live test.

♪ ♪

- The Soviets launch an Almaz that has a gun on it.

♪ ♪

The crew spends about three weeks in orbit

running various tests, and then they go home

because the Soviets don't want to have a crew on board

in case the test of this gun goes badly wrong.

- The crew's off the vessel,

but the space station is still in orbit.

It's time to test the cannon.

- Officials on the ground fire the gun by remote control.

♪ ♪

They shoot it once.

They shoot it twice.

They shoot it three times.

[gunshot]

It's the first time a gun has ever been fired in space.

- But firing a gun in space has unexpected downsides.

- If you miss your target,

that bullet would have so much energy and momentum behind it

that it would potentially keep going.

There could still be Russian bullets orbiting the Earth.

[radio chatter in Russian]

- The test is never repeated

and the gun is decommissioned

and stored secretly for 40 years.

- It's a weapon that many people

didn't even believe existed.

- Then in 2015, a Russian TV show

visits a private military collection

and the Almaz space cannon is finally revealed to the world.

- In 1983, a final showdown of the space race begins

when Ronald Reagan announces a plan

to put laser guns in space.

It's called the Strategic Defense Initiative.

Most people know it as Star Wars,

and Russia strikes back with a plan of its own.

[suspenseful music]

- My fellow Americans,

thank you for sharing your time with me tonight.

Tonight, we're launching an effort which holds the promise

of changing the course of human history.

- Ronald Reagan makes this announcement

that shocks the world.

He's launching a Strategic Defense Initiative.

- The plan is to launch a network of satellites

armed with defensive lasers,

lasers that can shoot down Russian missiles.

♪ ♪

- If a laser could shoot down a missile

before it ever reached the homeland,

it would make all nuclear weapons...

both: Impotent and obsolete.

- The program requires radical new technology

that doesn't even exist yet.

♪ ♪

- Critics around the world started to see this

as a science fiction tale.

So Reagan's program started to be called

the Star Wars program.

♪ ♪

- The Western media poked fun.

But the reaction in Moscow is deadly serious.

♪ ♪

- When the Soviets found out about Reagan's plan

to put a laser in space, they see it totally different.

What they see is a chance for the Americans to launch

nuclear weapons against Russia,

but then the laser would incapacitate

only Russian nuclear warheads in response.

They see it as a one-sided threat that doesn't

nullify the nuclear arms race, but instead intensifies it.

So they go about creating their own platform.

- If America is planning Star Wars,

then the Soviets must find an answer.

They set up a secret project

to build a space battle station

armed with lasers.

- Within a year of Reagan's "Star Wars" speech,

Soviet scientists are commissioned

to provide a laser capable of destroying American satellites.

- This 1 million-watt laser is the first weapon

on their planned orbital weapons platform,

essentially a space station

that is armed with cutting-edge weaponry.

It's a radical new technology.

No one has put a laser in space before.

- The mysterious weapon is called "Polyus Skif,"

which roughly translates to North Pole barbarian.

Whatever the name, it's a killer.

- The "Polyus Skif" is massive.

It's two tractor trailers long and weighs 80 tons.

It requires a huge rocket to launch it.

- The Soviet space laser is way ahead

of Reagan's Star Wars,

and it's a potential game-changer.

Some call it a battlestar that will weaponize space.

- They've essentially created a Death Star.

A real Death Star.

- In 1987, it's ready

to be launched into orbit and tested.

But there's been a change at the Kremlin.

The Soviet Union has a new leader

who's looking to slow down the space race.

- Mikhail Gorbachev has publicly proposed an end

to the development of space weapons.

- Because he's promising to reduce the Cold War,

the development of a space-based laser

is going to blow a hole in peace talks.

- But Gorbachev doesn't want to pull the plug

on "Polyus" quite yet.

- The Soviet Union has already sunk a lot of money into this,

so the launch is going to go ahead.

But he orders them to not test the laser in space.

It's not a good look.

♪ ♪

- On launch day, Gorbachev's so concerned

about Western reaction to the laser that he bans any photos.

- All the journalists and photographers

could only stand on the opposite side of the rocket.

That was Gorbachev's solution to making sure that history

only told the tale of what they could see,

which was a clean rocket going into space,

when in fact, there was a covert death ray

on the other side of the rocket that was trying to be hidden.

♪ ♪

- The launch goes ahead...

as discreetly as possible.

♪ ♪

- The day that the "Polyus" is set to launch, it's a big day.

The officials are out there.

The launch proceeds.

And it's looking good initially.

But then...

[tense electronic music]

Something goes terribly wrong, spins out of control,

plunges back to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere.

Everything is lost.

It's a complete disaster.

- In the end, both programs failed.

Reagan ran out of funding for his Star Wars program,

and the idea of space-based lasers

still remains a thing of science fiction.

But the question is for how long?

- In 1991, the collapse of the Soviet Union

puts an end to the Cold War phase of the space race.

But the contest to control deep space is far from over.

New players from SpaceX in America

to China, India, and Japan are looking to the moon.

And beyond.

♪ ♪

From covert plans to nuke the moon

to tragic attempts to cover up shocking disasters,

competition in deep space will continue to inspire strange,

terrible and sometimes inspiring missions.

I'm David Duchovny.

Thanks for watching "Secrets Declassified."