1. Spengler in space | Russians have cosmonauts and Americans have astronauts: that& #39;s the difference between a Faustian civilisation and a new culture with a Faustian overlay. Cosmos suggests a stable, ordered whole; Faustian man reaches for the stars (astro-).

2. As with the Ancient Greeks, who never left the Med, the Russians don& #39;t think in terms of infinite expansion. The Odyssey took place in a tiny patch of sea; for the Greeks the world was contained. The Russians called their space station "Mir" (village): small, even in space.

3. Russians could not contemplate this "space chair", an invention that allows one man alone to experience the infinite vastness of space. The Russians were in a village, even in space. Faustian man sets out into the infinite, alone.

4. The soul of a people can be found in their engineering and architecture. The Russian Soyuz rocket contains distinctive bulges that are reminiscent of the onion domes on St. Basil& #39;s. Faustian rockets are sleek and streamlined; Russian rockets undulate like a babushka& #39;s belly.

5. A rocket is, after all, a kind of cathedral spire. Faustian cathedrals reach up and out; space is their natural destination. Russians fail in space because their soul abhores infinite expanses; communism, a Faustian overlay, forced space travel on them.

6. Communism& #39;s "space religion" was imposed just as Peter the Great imposed Westernisation before. Westerners love Soviet space kitsch because it& #39;s Faustian and familiar. The Russian culture may explore space, when it emerges, but not in a Faustian way.