Through the centuries, to leave Earth
was an impossible fantasy.
Then two rival scientists became locked in a race
to realize that dream.
Their struggle would make history.
Fire!
At the end of World War Two, Russia and America
raced to capture the secrets of Germany's rocket technology.
Who's the brains behind all this?
Wernher von Braun was a rocket genius years ahead of his time.
When he surrendered to the Americans,
he brought with him his dreams for space.
We have other rockets at the theoretical stage.
In time other rockets will leave Earth orbit altogether
and explore other planets.
But von Braun's vision had come at a price.
Were you ever a member of the National Socialist Party?
Yes I was.
The SS?
Yes, I held the rank of Major.
Slave labor was used to construct von Braun's rockets.
You were aware of the existence of the V2 mass production plant?
You saw the conditions.
Don't you imagine someone else would've done the work if I had refused?
Unknown to von Braun,
the Soviets had a space visionary of their own.
Your confession.
Sergei Korolev was sentenced to ten years in the gulag
for crimes he did not commit.
Once released,
he became the chief designer of Russia's rocket program
and was so successful that his very existence was hidden from the West.
In the interest of State security
no one must know your identity.
It must be as if you don't exist.
After the Second World War,
an iron curtain fell across the ruins of Europe,
separating the Communist East
from the Capitalist West.
Two superpowers, America and the Soviet Union
became locked to the new arm race.
The cold war became fear as the nuclear strike by the other.
In 1952, the Americans tested the most powerful weapon
that the world had ever seen - the hydrogen bomb.
The year is now 1953
Of 12 August. The Soviet Union also exploded the first H-bomb.
The race is on for nuclear supremacy.
Congratulations comrades.
Good job well done.
May all such future devices explode as successfully, hm?
He's here, in person?
The h-bomb test leads
to a momentous meeting for Sergei Korolev,
the Soviet's chief rocket designer.
Good morning Comrade Marshal.
What an unexpected surprise.
Please.
Korolev's military paymasters
set him the challenge of a lifetime.
Five tons? You are proposing a five-ton warhead?
It's what our physicists are telling us
that the next generation of hydrogen bomb will weigh.
The Defense Ministers looked into aircraft as a delivery system.
But we've concluded that aircraft are too slow
and too easily targeted.
What we need is a rocket
that can deliver it over a distance of eight thousand kilometers,
capable of reaching America,
and in this way, safeguard ourselves against our enemies.
With respect, the Ministry does understand that there is nothing currently under development
that has anything like that capability?
Obviously.
So the question is a simple one.
Can it be done?
Of course, Comrade.
Korolev hopes if he had achieved
the military needs,
he would be able to fulfill his lifelong ambition
to journey to space.
The first step would be to launch a satellite to orbit the earth.
Then manned space flight will follow.
But on the other side of the world in America,
Korolev knows he has a rival.
What he doesn't know
is that his rival faces a crisis.
Restricted by the U.S. Army
to develop only small, short-range rockets,
Wernher von Braun's ambitions are crushed.
Trajectory is stable. Gyros functioning normal.
Von Braun has brought his team from Germany
hoping to pursue a space programme.
- Bridge is clear. - Good.
We have hours of data collection ahead of us.
Let's uh, have a short break.
Besides I have some news to pass on to you.
But their employers, the U.S. Army, have sidelined them.
Are they serious?
We're simply not a priority at the moment.
They want the funds elsewhere.
Nonetheless, I remain convinced, they will see sense eventually.
We'll get our shot.
They're cutting back our funds even for military missiles.
How are you going to convince them that we should launch a satellite?
I don't see any evidence that they even want a space programme.
Until von Braun's team
get a chance to build a bigger rocket,
they have no hope of launching a satellite.
YOU WOMEN HAVE HEARD OF JALOPIES,
YOU'VE HEARD THE NOISE THEY MAKE.
BUT LET ME INTRODUCE MY NEW ROCKET EIGHTY-EIGHT.
CAN'T PLAY IT STRAIGHT, JUST WANNA WAIT.
EVERYBODY LIKES MY ROCKET EIGHTY-EIGHT.
We are losing some of our best people.
Money in the private sector is powerful allure to an engineer with the right expertise.
I don't know what else to try.
The military just don't- don't see the significance.
The only people who've shown any interest in space
are in Walt Disney's studio.
Maybe that's the answer.
Sell the idea direct to the American public.
Show them there's more to it than missiles.
Show them space as America's new frontier.
von Braun doesn't know...
...he has a rival in the Soviet Union.
We're going to need a radically new approach.
To send five times the weight
over fifteen times the range
we need twice the velocity,
twenty times the energy of our biggest rocket.
For Korolev and his deputy Vasily Mishin,
the new rocket will stretch science to breaking point.
You know something Vasily?
The rocket will have to be nearly half the size of that building over there.
You're truly convinced of this?
Hold your nerve, Vasily.
And remember, when we have it built,
we'll finally be able to launch a satellite.
Of course you know who we'll have to work with.
Mm. Glushko.
To have a chance of success, Korolev first has to enlist the help
of the Soviets' leading rocket engine designer.
One of the very men who had denounced him during Stalin's purges:
Valentin Glushko
Very Jules Verne.
To carry such a weight such a distance, we need to get radical.
Well, I'm all in favor of that.
But you'll never get one engine
to carry a five-ton warhead.
What if we use several engines
firing together to share the load?
But there's no telling on the impact of one engine on another.
It's never been tried.
Well that's a challenge for you, Valentin.
What I propose is four clusters of main engines strapped to the main body of the rocket.
Once they've accelerated the rocket to sufficient speed,
the clusters drop away,
shedding the dead weight,
allowing the central core to continue at a faster velocity.
Look. I need your help with these engines.
Alright, it is ambitious.
But if we combine our forces, we just might make history.
It's a huge gamble.
But if they succeed they will have the means to get to space.
The engines will be my department and mine alone.
Alright. I'll do it.
Korolev's new rocket, designated the R7,
will be so huge, even its launch site
has to be designed from scratch
at a remote site fourteen hundred miles from Moscow.
Well, it's certainly bleak.
Better get used to it, Vasily.
This is going to be home.
Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin supervises the project
reporting directly to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
Thirty-six hours by train and dirt track.
This rocket better be everything you promise, Sergei Pavolovich.
The R7 is a bold design,
but the defense of the Motherland deserves nothing less.
I have a proposal that could be of great benefit to the military.
This rocket has applications
well beyond the delivery of warheads.
Imagine being able to spy on any region of the earth.
It's beautifully simple.
With our R7 rocket
we could launch a small object into orbit,
fitted with a camera.
Throw anything into the air,
it will climb in an arc,
and the speed can no longer match the force of earth's gravity
and it's pulled back down to earth.
Stone or missile, the effect is the same.
But with this rocket, we will have the means...
to throw something much faster and higher
right out through the earth's atmosphere.
There it will orbit the earth,
held in place by the balance of its outward speed and the force of Earth's gravity.
Now, imagine if we launched a satellite like that.
It would circle the planet
photographing everything we would want to see,
even those things the Americans would rather we did not see.
They are not sleeping over there, neither are we.
This is a military commission.
We need to place nuclear warheads on American soil.
We don't want spaceships.
Von Braun is also on the offensive.
In an attempt to outflank his military employers,
he persuades Walt Disney Productions
to sell his dreams of space direct to the American public.
Once the satellite achieves orbit,
the earth, more than one thousand miles below,
will appear a gigantic glowing globe, an awe-inspiring sight.
North America will look like a great patchwork of green and brown,
stretching all the way to the snow-covered Rockies,
bordered by the brilliant blue of the seas.
On the earth's night side,
the world's cities will appear as twinkling points of light.
The earth itself will be framed by the absolute black of space.
The real prize is the conquest of space.
And if we don't do it, another nation,
possibly a less peace-minded nation, will.
With a high-powered telescope,
you can see all points on the surface...
And cut.
Enthralling forty million viewers
on primetime television,
von Braun becomes a household name.
And behind the scenes, things begin moving his way.
Unlike the Soviets,
the Americans secretly plan to develop spy satellites.
As cover they announce a peaceful, scientific satellite programme.
The President today approved plans by this country of going forward
for the launching of a small, unmanned earth-circling satellite
in the region beyond the earth's atmosphere.
The news alarms Korolev,
afraid of losing his chance to be the first in space.
Look at what the Americans are up to now.
Look.
They have von Braun,
so we know they have the technological expertise.
For all we know, they could be launching a spy satellite
over Moscow within a month.
May I suggest to the committee
they give me permission to use the new rocket to launch a satellite.
You are obliged, and will continue your work as ordered.
No one is irreplaceable, Comrade.
Unknown to Korolev,
von Braun has to compete for the satellite contract.
You understand that this interview will be recorded as a matter of permanent record?
He hopes his application to become an American citizen will improve his chances,
despite his Nazi background.
I only ever met Hitler twice.
That is now firmly in my past.
The FBI question von Braun's neighbors.
Well it's my opinion that he is an avowed member of the Nazi Party.
Once a Nazi always a Nazi, if you ask me.
He'd sure be a greater danger to America
if he became a national of some other country.
I am a scientist, not a soldier.
A rocket is just a vehicle.
What it carries is outside my province.
To use my knowledge for the benefit of America is my only concern.
Subject seems to have little interest in political affairs.
He is considered loyal to the United States.
Based on this interview,
I see no reason to doubt the subject's sincerity in applying for residence.
Sign, please.
Ten years after he was spirited out of Germany,
von Braun hopes he has bought his ticket to space.
Congratulations.
You are now citizens of the United States of America.
God bless you and God bless America.
But his satellite bid
faces stiff competition, from the US Navy.
Well gentlemen, what do we think?
In my mind, von Braun holds the ace card here.
His team's certainly the best we've got.
He has the greater expertise.
So we're agreed then? Von Braun's our man.
If I may speak frankly?
I don't think we should be seen developing a rocket
being modified from Nazi vengeance missiles, by German engineers.
America's first satellite launcher should be exactly that.
An American product.
Von Braun.
Yes, Doctor von Braun.
I have some bad news I'm afraid.
I've been asked to inform you the US Navy
have been awarded the satellite contract.
- We're sorry. - Thank you.
Von Braun is back to square one,
just when his Russian rival is on the verge of his biggest break.
Convinced that long range rockets
provide the best means of destroying the United States,
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev checks up on Korolev's progress.
Powered by... Valentin Glushko's clustered engines,
the R7 will carry the next generation of nuclear warheads.
May I introduce the R7.
This is a mock-up of the actual rocket, but completely to scale.
A truly impressive machine, Sergei Pavolovich.
How much does it weigh?
Two hundred and eighty tons at lift-off.
Thrust at lift off will be over four hundred and three tons,
more than anything achieved before.
What is that in horsepower?
That would be approximately six point four million, Nikita Sergeyevich.
We will run them off the production lines like sausages.
As you know, Nikita Sergeyevich,
we are designing it to carry a five ton warhead.
But that is only one of its applications.
There's something else I would love to show you.
The R7 provides us with a chance to make scientific as well as military history.
The world's first satellite.
The real thing would be seven times the size of this model
What do we have to gain from such a device?
It's beautifully simple.
It would orbit the earth at an incredible speed,
eighteen thousand miles an hour.
And would be able to spy on any region of the earth's surface.
All we need is the go-ahead to build it.
It would get in the way of the missile programme.
Nikita.
Nikita Sergeyevich, as we speak, the Americans are spending millions on such a project.
Once the R7 is flying,
all we need to do is replace the warhead with the satellite and launch.
So, the Americans have uh, shiny new cars,
and we have a shiny new satellite.
But, remember Sergei Pavolovich, you better make sure that it works.
Comrades, to our satellite. To our satellite.
With Khrushchev' blessing,
Korolev wastes no time starting to build his satellite,
codenamed Object D.
Dozens of different Soviet institutes are involved in the prestigious project.
NII-885 Radio Guidance Systems.
SKB-567, Telemetry.
NII-592, Automatics.
OKB-10, Applied Mechanics.
NII-4, Ballistic and Control Measuring Devices.
As the Cold War arms race intensifies in the mid-fifties,
both sides test ever more powerful nuclear weapons.
You know how bad sunburn can feel.
The atomic bomb flash could burn you worse than a terrible sunburn.
We all know the atomic bomb is very dangerous.
Since it may be used against us,
we must get ready for it.
First you duck, and then you cover.
Remember what to do, friends.
Now tell me right out loud,
what are you supposed to do when you see the flash?
Duck, and cover.
With the deepening crisis
the American military decide to build medium-range missiles.
At last von Braun is given funds.
but to build a larger rocket
to carry warheads.
the Jupiter C.
Although far less powerful than Korolev's R7,
it could launch a small satellite.
But von Braun still faces opposition.
Then a firing squad of Hungarian soldiers took aim at the Red Star on unintelligible.
Please be informed that on the dates you intend for the test firing,
inspectors will arrive and will remain throughout the test period.
You know what this is about, don't you?
They're checking we don't launch a satellite.
They think we might do it accidentally.
Well we might, mightn't we?
Not with Pentagon inspectors around.
To prevent von Braun secretly launching
a satellite ahead of the US Navy,
Pentagon inspectors monitor
the maiden flight of the Jupiter C.
Everything seems fine.
Good. Let's get on with it.
Range, three thousand three hundred and thirty-five miles.
Altitude, six hundred and eighty-two miles.
Yes!
That, gentleman, is an altitude record.
Feel free to report back to Washington that if they'd allowed us
to realize the Jupiter C's full potential,
they could have made space history today.
We could have launched
the world's first satellite, for America.
In Soviet Union, all hopes of launching a satellite depend on the R7 rocket,
and the clustering of its engines.
If this first test of the flying cycle works,
then your idea of clustering may very well be the way forward.
Shut off the fuel lines.
What do you think?
Fuel line rupture.
I have to have equal flow rate to all engines.
It takes one valve to fail
and you can blow the lot.
I warned you clustering was dangerous.
Look at it.
One test, four engines ruined.
I've only got so much manpower, so many parts.
So what's your point, Valentin?
You want innovation?
Well innovation takes time.
Clustering was your choice.
I'm not sure we can prove that clustering will ever work.
Worse still,
Korolev's satellite design reaches crisis-point.
It's just too big, by seven centimeters.
Unless we remove the Geiger counter system,
it just won't fit.
Idiots. Idiots!
Why don't they take our orders seriously?
How the hell are we going to succeed if they don't look at our specifications?
They are ignorant lumberjacks!
They're not worth the bullets it would take to shoot them!
And who's responsible for this?
How much extra weight has this introduced?
Anyone would think we have a goods train here,
not a satellite.
We should change it, then.
Make it lighter and simpler.
Let's strip it to the bone, remove the scientific experiments.
It will work then.
It has taken just two years
to transform Baikonur from a wasteland into the world's first spaceport.
Despite the problems,
Glushko finally delivers the first engines to the launch site.
The engine clusters will provide thrust.
Smaller, revolutionary steering engines
will set the R7's course.
With thirty-two engines and weighing
a massive two hundred and eighty tons,
some believe the R7 will never achieve lift-off.
If it does,
Sergei Korolev will get the chance to launch his satellite,
the first stepping stone in man's journey to space.
The Pentagon continue to reject von Braun's requests to launch a satellite,
despite the success of his Jupiter C.
Special delivery.
Direct from our missiles.
I wrapped this up and placed it inside the nose cone.
It survived re-entry and splashed down in the Atlantic.
The first rocket mail.
It's not even singed.
So the heat shield works.
We have to persuade them.
We can launch a satellite.
So, why don't we divert some of the component parts from the assembly line.
Keep them for later?
When the Navy's rocket fails,
they'll be thanking us.
Von Braun risks court-martial
by concealing parts of his rocket,
such is his determination to be ready
if the US Navy fails.
His rival is pushing ahead.
All Korolev has to do now is to test fly his rocket.
But first, a long-held Russian tradition to christen the launch.
I am picking something up here.
A lot of heat. Could be a fire.
The R7 disintegrates ninety seconds into flight.
Likely cause?
Possibly a fuel leak.
An engine problem?
There is absolutely no way of knowing that at this stage.
There could be any number of contributing factors.
Well, let's collect what wreckage we can.
We'll soon find out.
Comrade Marshal.
I'm sorry.
I have one failed launch,
thirty-two wrecked engines.
If things go on this way
my entire production line will collapse.
And my position on this was always clear.
It's too ambitious.
Irresponsibly, wastefully ambitious.
I-I can't see it working.
The whole thing's been badly mismanaged.
If I had been in charge from the very beginning,
I don't think we'd be in this mess now.
In June, things get even worse.
Mechanical failures prevent take-off of three more test flights.
In July an R7 clears the launch pad.
But thirty-three seconds later,
an engine cluster detaches too early from the rocket's central core.
Feeling the strain, Sergei Pavolovich?
I'm fine.
And what about the rocket? Is that fine?
This can't go on.
These failures are costly both in money and time.
You had assured me your calculations were correct.
There are many innovations, Comrade.
I have to warn you, Comrade.
Carry on like this and I'll shut down your entire test program
and have the missile removed and reworked elsewhere.
We need results.
Korolev is given one more test launch, one last chance.
But his satellite has gone through a transformation.
After abandoning the heavyweight Object D,
the team had built a replacement in less than a month.
We got the weight down.
It's now just over eighty-three kilograms.
Perfect.
Stripped of all complex instrumentation,
carrying just a single radio transmitter:
it becomes known as the simple Sputnik.
Korolev's career, and his dream of conquering space,
hang on the sixth and final test launch.
The R7 flies over six thousand kilometers.
Further than any rocket ever before,
hitting its test target in Siberia.
Successful launch.
Flying far enough to reach America.
Now you can have your Sputnik.
To prove to the world his Sputnik is in orbit,
Korolev needs it to transmit a signal from space.
Comrade Korolev.
It's all right Vyacheslav.
Please, continue.
I couldn't sleep.
Can I hear it?
Of course.
It's really very simple.
It's just a single beep repeated at regular intervals.
At ten twenty-eight PM,
the engines ignite and the R7 flawlessly clears the pad.
Not as a weapon of mass destruction,
but as a carrier of one man's life-long dreams.
The rocket's dead on course.
We should know in ninety minutes.
There is so much left to do, Vasily.
I only hope I'm given enough years to make sure they happen.
A teapot of vodka for every man on the site!
Every man!
At three minutes past midnight Moscow time,
Sputnik One becomes
the first ever manmade object to orbit Earth.
Herr Doctor, they've done it.
Done what?
The Russians.
It's just been announced over the radio
that the Russians have put a satellite into space.
I was in a position a year ago
to put a satellite up with my Jupiter C rocket.
And I tell you something else, Mr. Secretary.
The President is counting on the Navy's rocket.
I tell you right now the Vanguard will never make it.
But we can.
We can put a satellite up in sixty days.
Leave it to me, I'll take it to Washington.
Scanning the horizon in Moscow, while the world watches the flight of the satellite.
They call it Sputnik.
Russia hails its own achievement with loud praise.
Defense Minister Marshal Zukov declares
Soviet science makes possible newest weapons for its armies,
including the inter-continental ballistic missile.
Until two days ago that sound had never been heard on this earth.
Suddenly it has become as much a part of twentieth century life
as the whir of your vacuum cleaner.
It gets the American people alarmed
that a foreign country, especially an enemy country, can do this,
and it- we fear this.
It's a devastating blow to American national pride.
President Eisenhower is immediately
under pressure to close the so-called Missile Gap.
Uh, Mr. President, are you saying you are not concerned about our nation's security?
As far as the satellite itself is concerned, it does definitely prove
the possession by the Russian scientists, of a very powerful threat in their uh, rocketry.
Unknown to the Americans,
Korolev has launched a second Sputnik.
this time with a passenger.
Laika.
Once sealed inside a makeshift capsule
Laika sits on the pad for two days
while the R7 is fueled beneath her.
Just four weeks after launching Sputnik,
Korolev succeeds in putting the first living creature into space.
The Soviet Union has launched a second Earth satellite.
Do you admire the Russians for doing it or not?
No, definitely not.
I said we should've been the first ones to have it if there's such a thing.
This satellite should be long remembered
as a symbol of the torture the animal world must go through.
And I don't mean to be facetious at all
but there's a female up there circling Mother Earth.
Laika survives just over five hours in orbit
before dying of heat exhaustion.
What do you think about America not being able to do the same?
Well if I was in military service and fell down on the job like that,
I could stand a court-martial.
Somebody's falling down on the job.
Ironically, with another Soviet coup,
von Braun finds himself blamed for the American failure.
Doctor von Braun,
what is your current assessment of the Soviet's missile capability?
Based on recent events,
I would say the Soviets have the capacity to put a hydrogen warhead on Washington, today.
You're in charge of the Army's missile programme.
Any responsibility for a missile lag must rest squarely with you.
You yourself could have informed the President and Congress
that we were not making satisfactory progress under your direction.
Dr. von Braun, perhaps you'd like to explain to this committee
what exactly you think you've been doing for the past ten years?
We...
From the moment we set foot on US soil,
I and my team have been under funded and underutilized.
I have spent years trying to make myself heard.
I cannot be held accountable if my employers,
which is the US military,
fails to take advantage of my abilities.
At last von Braun gets the go-ahead to launch a satellite.
But the US Navy is to have first shot.
With only weeks to turn it around,
von Braun is joined by the scientists, William Pickering and James Van Allen,
who will design the instruments onboard.
I can't persuade the Pentagon
to let us launch our satellite before the Navy,
but I want to be ready
as soon as they've had their go.
The scientific instruments, the radio transmitter,
everything must fit inside this space.
I'm calling it The Explorer.
How quickly can you get this done?
In an attempt to restore America's shattered pride,
the US Navy rushes its satellite towards launch.
The Vanguard rocket has never been tested before
but the world's media are promised
that the launch will be the biggest TV spectacle in history.
Having risen just three feet from the pad,
the only thing to survive the explosion
is the satellite.
Blown clear, it begins to transmit from the ground nearby.
Flopnik.
Dudnik.
Oopsnik.
And my personal favorite, Kaputnik!
We've been given a launch,
but it's only a three-day window.
We have to launch by the end of January.
If we miss it,
the Navy's second attempt is scheduled for the very next day.
This will not happen to us.
If successful, Von Braun's Explorer
will outdo Korolev's Sputnik
by collecting scientific data from space.
On the eve of the big day,
von Braun is ordered to Washington to deal with the media.
But for two days, bad weather
prevents the launch.
The last day of January,
von Braun has until midnight.
After that, the US Navy will get a second chance.
It's Debus.
This is a crazy way to do business,
launching rockets by telephone.
Kurt. Tell me this is good news.
We just got word from the weather office.
Winds have dropped and we're ready to go.
At last.
Good luck, Kurt.
I only wish I could be there.
Four months after Korolev launched Sputnik,
von Braun's satellite is bound for space.
How long can we expect to wait?
This is Antigua Island,
fourth stage has fired,
Explorer should be on its way.
Okay gentlemen. All we can do is wait.
It should be over the next tracking station in California
in an hour and a half.
Until its radio signal reaches the tracking station in California,
von Braun will have no confirmation
that Explorer is actually in orbit.
There is a ninety minute wait.
Well, I make that one and a half hours.
Where's our signal?
California, do you hear her?
Nothing.
I think we should give it a few minutes leeway.
Wernher, what happened?
Do we have a satellite or don't we?
Pickering.
We did?
Gentlemen, we made it to space.
The reason for the delay
is that we made a higher orbit than anyone anticipated.
I guess you just made it back into the history books.
Well done.
Gentleman, I am proud to announce
the successful launch of Explorer 1,
America's first man-made satellite,
into Earth's orbit last night.
I have long seen my purpose in life as the promotion of space flight.
Well today we have answered the Soviet challenge and in doing so,
opened the gates to the heavens.
At last von Braun has a satellite.
Are we happy with the dimensions?
But still no idea of the identity of the man who was beaten into it.
Apparently the Americans have evened the score.
It would appear that we are in a race to space.
A race that we, of course intend to win.