But, Russia was not content to live with this threat; they built an entirely new weapon, an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of destroying the world. Now, in Pictures from Baikonur, President Eisenhower must risk nuclear war in order to prevent an arms race.
Fifty years after the first H-bomb was exploded in 1952, Pictures from Baikonur brings to life the unsung heroes who kept the world at peace through the dawn of the atomic age.
Flying a ten engined flying battleship, the largest military aircraft ever built, test pilot Hank Johns and his 20 man crew are sent deep inside Russia to photograph Soviet missiles capable of destroying the world. Svetlana Periscova, Russia’s top female fighter pilot, must stop them from reporting what they have seen. Their only escape is through Communist China. Colonel Mike Peterson, Johns’ commander, deliberately sacrifices the ship to get the priceless films safely back to the Pentagon. President Eisenhower must decide weather to send Johns back with a cryogenic hydrogen bomb to destroy the missile site. Marshal Georgi Zhukov, The Soviet Union’s greatest war hero, must persuade the American Ambassador that the missiles are really just part of Russia’s space program before the world erupts in a nuclear holocaust.
