The Space Race (2024) Movie Review – An amazing look into Black history within NASA

An amazing look into Black history within NASA

Disney and National Geographic make an incredible contribution this week to documentaries to seek out during Black History Month. The Space Race is a 90-minute exploration that celebrates and explores the history of Black astronauts at NASA. The history books should represent everyone, not just one side; that’s the message of The Space Race. It chronicles the first Black astronaut and the most recent one, Victor Glover, who had an extensive mission in space back in 2020.

Directed by Lisa Cortes and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, The Space Race kicks off all the way back in the 1960s, when President John F. Kennedy wanted to put a man on the moon. He also planned to put a man of color on the moon. With that intention, 27-year-old Ed Dwight was selected for the opportunity to be the first Black astronaut in space. This chance to be cemented in history was taken away a few years later due to the J.F.K. assassination.

Ed Dwight would get his flowers and respect later in life; more on that in a minute. It would be nearly two decades before NASA would put a Black man in space; Guion “Guy” Bluford would be the first to do it in 1983 on the space shuttle Challenger.

The Space Race is a perfect timeline of the history of all this. Despite Dwight’s rejection from NASA in the 1960s, it then shows how that affected Black culture throughout the civil rights movement. The clashing of social ideals between White and Black people on Earth while Neil Armstrong sets foot on the moon for the first time is discussed. Afrofuturism became a thing of Black culture in the 1970s, almost as a rebellious response to the vibe that no Black men were being allowed to explore the idea of traveling into space.

It’s all there for us to follow along and see, and it was executed on screen incredibly well. Even until traveling into space reached a screeching halt in 1986 with the Challenger explosion, a mission that had one Black crew member, Ronald McNair. 

With a title like The Space Race, it’s only fair that it touches on the phrase the title is derived from. Russia and America were in an all-out competition to be the first to get to the moon in the 1960s, but Russia was the first to have a non-white astronaut, with Arnaldo Tamayo Mendez being the first astronaut of African descent to go to space, as he was part of a mission in 1978 for the Soviets. 

Despite triumphs over tragedy being the underlying theme of The Space Race, it also thrives in its approach to the love of science and even science fiction, as it also touches on actress Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura from the original Star Trek. She pioneered the idea of having young Black men and women follow their passions and study the stars above by using these messages as a promotional technique. 

The Space Race echoes Neil Armstrong’s “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” quote, as it is reflective of Black men and women making waves in this industry. By doing that, to bring it back to Ed Dwight, he became an honoree at a senate hearing when new NASA administrator Charles F. Bolden Jr. was sworn in. Bolden, a Black man, acknowledged the man who never got to get the label of an astronaut but broke down the barriers for those who could. It’s the best full-circle moment you could have in a documentary.

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