Brezhnev and top Red Army commanders had several private screenings in 1971 before the film was released. Actual launches of Soviet space rockets were filmed in 1970 and 1971 at Baykonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Original director's cut had 5,500 meters of film length with runtime of almost four hours. But after censorship and various consultancy demands it was reduced to 4,553 meters, runtime - 166 min. Next reduction occurred with video release. Current video version is reduced to only ...[Read Story ]