In Douglas Trumbull’s 1972 film Silent Running, a huge biodome space station orbits a desolate planet, and yet the fiction wasn’t that far from what was already being tested on Earth.

In Soviet Russia, experiments with people in isolation creating their own atmosphere were already well underway, and the US wasn’t far behind.

This hour-long documentary uses rare archive footage from both space programmes, along with interviews with scientists who worked on them, as well as other experts in the field. They are all convinced that it is possible to develop a self-sufficient space station, or biodomes should there be a manned mission to Mars.

Does this knowledge beg the question: wouldn’t it be better putting all that money and resources into finding ways of saving this planet and creating sustainable agriculture and bio-systems on Earth?

2011 is the fiftieth anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s flight into space – this film will be followed by a discussion with space expert, Jerry Stone, on the next fifty years in space.