It’s a question that physicists, philosophers, and science fiction writers have pondered for decades: how to travel from one place to another without travelling through the space in between.

Now a Kremlin-backed research program is seeking to make the teleportation technology behind Captain Kirk’s transporter a reality.

A proposed multi-trillion pound strategic development program drawn up for Vladimir Putin would seek to develop teleportation by 2035.

"It sounds fantastical today, but there have been successful experiments at Stanford at the molecular level," Alexander Galitsky, a prominent investor in the country's technology sector, told Russia's Kommersant daily on Wednesday. "Much of the tech we have today was drawn from science fiction films 20 years ago."

The Star-Trek style target is listed in the National Technological Initiative, a state-sponsored strategic development plan designed pour investment into research and development sector in a number of key sectors.