hello wonderful person you know I wasn't sure what to name this video because on
the one hand it's meant to commemorate the last member of the great era who
just passed away but on the other hand it's also meant as an inspiration for
the future generation before Neil deGrasse Tyson and Brian Greene and even
Carl Sagan there were several prominent Soviet writers illustrators and
filmmakers who would create media to inspire generations what you're looking
at right now are the wonderful paintings created by the two incredible men
Andrei Sokolov a prolific Russian science artist and his friend Alexei
Leonov the first man to conduct a spacewalk that almost ended in the
disaster many of you might know the history behind it the spacesuit he was
wearing expanded due to pressure differences making him unable to
re-enter the capsule so to solve this he opened one of the inner valves releasing
precious air and almost passed out and died while doing so this was the first
lesson for both the Soviets and the Americans that suits had to be
manufactured differently but for those precious minutes alone in space
specifically just over 12 minutes Leonov only thought about one thing "what
struck me the most was the silence it was great silence unlike any I have
encountered on earth so vast and deep that I began to hear my own body my
heart beating my blood vessels pulsing even the rustle of my muscles moving
over each other seemed audible there were more stars in the skies than I had
expected the sky was deep black yet at the same
time bright with sunlight"
but unlike the American counterparts who became celebrities and made a fortune
from book signings alone their Soviet counterparts did not enjoy the same fame
and fortune many like Leonov had to support their
families with additional income and for Leonov he was painting he published many
books a lot of them along with the friend
Andrei Sokolov and some of the paintings are the ones you are seeing here many of
these paintings were in a sense equivalent to modern work by science
educators such as the famous Carl Sagan the work that was meant to encourage
inspire and educate a lot of their paintings were not just beautiful but
very scientifically accurate and in most cases included a bit of a science
fiction element as well and some of these elements were even borrowed by
other sci-fi writers or film directors for example in Stanley Kubrick's opening
shot of 2001 Space Odyssey there is a similar undertone to one of the
paintings created by Leonov and they even shared a bit of a joke over it with
Leonov creating a miniature version just for Kubrick to keep interestingly
Kubrick also borrowed a lot of ideas for his film from the Soviet film director
Pavel Klushantsev who was an extremely talented soviet cameraman and who made
movies about the lunar landing the first space station and of course the first
man in space but years or even decades before it even happened and all of his
movies were remarkably scientifically accurate and you can even find a lot of
his movies here on YouTube I'm posting some of the links in the description
below but why am I even talking about all of these men well because with
Alexei Leonov death the era has ended he was the last surviving member of the
five astronauts in the original Voshkhod program and all of the other men
who inspired generations of youngsters who created amazing scientific painting
and film are now all dead it is very unfortunate that some of their last
memories of modern life and some of their last things they actually said
were not very happy they did not get to see the world they were hoping to see in
these paintings and neither their paintings nor the legacy they left was
appreciated by the modern society prior to his death Pavel Klushantsev the
movie director is known to have said the following "popular science is dying
because there is no money no demand nobody wants to educate everybody just
wants to make money every way possible but one must not live like this this is
how animals live men have reached the level of animals all they want to do is
eat and sleep there is no understanding that we are humanity that passes a
certain phase of evolution we must understand the direction of this
evolution for this would need culture we need knowledge" he criticized modern
Russian society but all of this of course applies to the much broader
generation in the West and to all of us as well all of us are guilty of doing
what he said we really shouldn't just living for the money
just living to eat and sleep and though he was right unfortunately not much has
changed in 20 years since his death but there are people out there in the world
who do try to change who do try to inspire and to create culture to share
knowledge but sometimes the world crushes them simply because it can
nevertheless just like those other Soviet men before me
despite not being a famous astronaut or talented artist or even someone who has
very good diction I'm going to do my part and continue seeding the hope for
Humanity continue the work of these great men and inspiring new generations
to do things believe in science create a better world because as Leonov once
said the earth was small light blue and so touchingly alone our home that must
be defended like a holy relic the earth was absolutely round I believe I never
knew what the world round meant until I saw the Earth from space goodbye comrade
and thank you for all of the paintings