The Space Race

National Geographic Documentary Films’ The Space Race weaves together the untold stories of the staggering aeronautic achievements of NASA’s pioneering Black astronauts who sought to break the bonds of social injustice to reach for the stars.  

Co-directors Diego Hurtado de Mendoza and Lisa Cortés profile the pioneering Black pilots, scientists and engineers who joined NASA to serve their country in space, even as their country failed to achieve equality for them on Earth. From 1963, when the assassination of President John F. Kennedy thwarted Captain Ed Dwight’s quest to reach the moon, to 2020, when the echoes of the civil unrest sparked by the killing of George Floyd reached the International Space Station, the story of African Americans at NASA is a tale of world events colliding with the aspirations of uncommon men.  

Along with Dwight, the film centers on stories from Guion Bluford, the first Black American to travel to space in 1983, former NASA administrators Charles Bolden and Leland Melvin. The bright dreams of Afrofuturism become reality in The Space Race, turning science fiction into science fact and forever redefining what “the right stuff” looks like, giving us new heroes to celebrate and a fresh history to explore. 

Directed by Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, Lisa Cortés. 2023. USA. 

Preceded by  

For the Moon

A coming-of-age story set in 1959 that follows a 9-year-old precocious African American who enters an all-white library, in a deeply segregated South Carolina, and refuses to leave without his books. Based on the true story of Ronald McNair. 

Directed by Nile Price. 2023. USA. 9 min.