Gluecifer Sputnik Monroe

This compelling story of exploration charts and celebrates humankind in space, from Sputnik's launch in 1957 through the Apollo Moon landings and the International Space Station to future missions to Mars and beyond.

Bill Monroe was a mandolin player, singer, songwriter and bandleader who, with his band The Bluegrass Boys, basing their name on the characteristic blue grass of the Kentucky landscape. In so doing, he effectively gave his name to an entire sub-genre of music - Bluegrass – which did not really exist under that name before he made his unique mark on the country scene in the 1940s. With its roots in Celtic music and old-time fiddle music for dancing, it also borrowed from blues and jazz, and was characterised by impressive high-speed virtuoso musicianship, with his band during this era providing a career platform for Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs.

Russia’s Sputnik Generation presents the life stories of eight 1967 graduates of School No. 42 in the Russian city of Saratov. Born in 1949/50, these four men and four women belong to the first generation conceived during the Soviet