Space Race

It begins in the collapse of war-torn Germany, as Soviet and American intelligence become locked in adeadly race to capture Wernher von Braun, the Nazi scientist behind Hitler's terror weapon, the V-2 rocket. Von Braun's dream is to travel beyond the moon but he has a rival, released from Stalin's Gulag in order to win at any cost.

Werhner von Braun, once Hitler's leading rocket scientist, is now in America where he hopes to launch the world's first satellite. He has no idea of his secret rival in the Soviet Union, Sergei Korolev, whose existence is a closely guarded state secret. Like von Braun, Korolev is prepared to gamble everything to be first in space.

After the launch of the Soviet Sputnik in 1957, Wernher von Braun is determined to seize the lead and send the first man into space. But his rival in the Soviet Union, Sergei Korolev shares that vision. In contrast to the fanfare at NASA as the first American astronauts meet the press, recruitment of Soviet cosmonauts begins in secrecy that means those selected have no idea what their mission is.

After the successful Soviet launch of the first man in space in 1961, President Kennedy sets the greatest scientific challenge in history, to land a man on the moon before the decade is out. In America, Wernher von Braun at last has funds for the most powerful rocket ever built but he has a rival in the Soviet Union, the anonymous Chief Designer, Sergei Korolev.