“The Race For Space” is a 1959 made-for-television documentary film directed by David L. Wolper and narrated by famed newsman Mike Wallace. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, and originally aired in April 1960.
The film opens with a countdown in Russian and a rocket streaking into the night sky in the opening seconds before Wallace notes “you are the first Americans to see this launching of Sputnik 1.” (Sputnik, the first artificial Earth satellite, launched by the Soviet Union on Oct. 4, 1957. It triggered the Space Race and ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments.) Wallace explains the film’s purpose starting at mark 01:08, and how the “race for space has always involved a great ideal — a dream that existed long before the Cold War. One of man’s oldest dreams — a trip to the stars.”
Wallace explains at mark 04:44 how Robert Goddard, an American engineer, professor, physicist, and inventor, built the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket in 1926 and ushered in the Space Age. Wallace interviews his widow, Edith, starting at mark 05:30, who reminisces about her husband’s work while scenes of Goddard and his experiments unfold on the screen.
The film goes back prior to World War II and to amateur rocketry clubs in Germany (mark 10:40), which helped filmmakers create the film “Woman in the Moon” in 1929. It is often considered to be one of the first “serious” science fiction films. A decade later it caught the eye of the Nazis (mark 12:09), who enlisted rocketry clubs to experiment with long-range rockets. That led to the creation of the V-2 rocket under the guidance of aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun. The picture goes on to show footage (mark 19:34) of successful rocket launches that had been shown to Adolf Hitler, followed by some of the devastation they brought upon London during World War II (mark 20:30).
With Germany finally defeated, rocketry caught the eye of the Americans and the Russians, who raced to Nordhausen and Peenemunde to get the German rocket scientists and technology that would benefit their own space programs (mark 22:15). As the film continues we learn how von Braun surrendered to American forces and how other German scientists, engineers, and technicians were recruited into working for the US government as part of Operation Paperclip.
Wallace talks of life returning to normal after WWII starting at mark 28:15 and we see scenes of returning troops and life i suburbia, as well learning of the Baby Boom and advent of television as Milton Berle (mark 29:11) “became America’s best-known face.” In the Soviet Union, however, we watch as Josef Stalin (mark 29:21) and later Nikita Khrushchev used those post-war years to educate young students about science and engineering. Russian rocket research looked to surpass that of the United States, leading to renewed efforts by American and German scientists. The results including the Viking and Atlas missiles. The USSR continued to the next step, returning to the launch of Sputnik 1 (mark 36:45) and a more-detailed explanation on the first Earth satellite. As the United States tried to determine its next step, the USSR moved forward once again sending Laika (mark 38:12), the first dog in space, on a one-way trip on board Sputnik 2 in November 1957. Although the dog died within hours, it became the first living creature to orbit Earth. American ingenuity came up short, as starting at mark 40:32 we see a series of failed US rocket launches. Scientists like von Braun and James Van Allen (mark 42:35) worked to advance the program. The first successful U.S. satellite, Explorer I, was launched into Earth orbit by the Army on Jan. 31, 1958, at Cape Canaveral, Florida, four months after Russia orbited Sputnik (mark 48:25).
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