A crumbling space shuttle that never flew in a Moscow park is a good place to appreciate how far Russia lost its way in a race it led 40 years ago, when Yury Gagarin became the first man in space.
The shuttle, named Buran - the name means blizzard - is now a museum in Gorky Park. But it is falling to bits, like the park itself, through lack of cash for maintenance.
In fact, Buran was an underfunded copycat attempt to keep up with the United States which launched its Space Shuttle in 1981. Buran looks like a space shuttle. It is painted like a space shuttle. But it never actually flew.
Just one of the 11 Buran vehicles produced made it into orbit, on a single unmanned trip, before the programme was axed in 1993.
Nowadays, the craft's name best describes the showers of flaking white paint that fall from the old hulk. Buran hosts a daily sound-and-light show for visitors inside its empty shell, the highlight of which is the smell of burning plastic, intended to remind visitors of the danger of fire in space.
In his office nearby, Mr Ilia Manyk, general director of the Space Art Company which manages the museum, stands on peeling lino by a small whining electric fan. "They shut down the Buran programme because there was no money," he says. "But you know, in Russia we have the best brains. There is so much potential here."
Back in 1961 the then Soviet Union gave the United States a run for its money - Gagarin's 108 minutes around the earth topped Moscow's earlier triumph in getting the first craft - Sputnik - into orbit.
It was followed when Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space in 1963. In 1971 Moscow launched the first space station, Salyut 1. But America became the first to put a man on the Moon, and later the economic gap between the superpowers began to tell.
Celebrations of Gagarin's feat today will be muted by the knowledge that Russia's space programme, like everything else, has shrunk.
The fiery descent of its troubled space station, Mir, last month underlined the bankruptcy of the Russian space programme - like everything else, a victim of lack of the country's economic woes.
Russia is contributing to the International Space Station, but only via US subsidies.
But Manyk says this new international project should show the way forward: "There shouldn't be a space race, there shouldn't be competition," he says."It doesn't matter who achieves something in this industry, because always it benefits human beings as a whole."
Despite the economic woes of their country, there are stars still in the eyes of Russia's veteran cosmonauts.
"Anyone who has spent any time in space will love it for the rest of their lives," Tereshkova, now 63, said in a recent interview. "It was a tremendous event. My childhood dream about the sky came true."