Part 1: Lebensraum

Part 1 explores the relationship of the Nazi rocket scientists and the U.S. space program; the contrast between the “innocence” of America’s post-war love affair with technology and space flight, and the development of that rocket technology in Nazi Germany’s slave labor camps during WWII. We follow Werhner von Braun, the Boy Wonder of rockets, who suavely sells the same bill of goods to Hitler, Walt Disney and President Kennedy.

Part 1 is a bright gold fantasia of rocket history, escaping Earth’s gravity with dazzling velocity, to reach all the way to the moon with the breath of collective aspiration.