Race to Space

Race to Space - Mission to the Unknown (Race to Space ) is an American- German drama film by Sean McNamara from the year 2001.

Action

The ten- year-old Billy Huber pulls at the beginning of the 1960s, together with his father to Cocoa Beach in Florida. His widowed father, the German rocket expert Wilhelm von Huber, works for NASA. After a few false starts, Dr. Huber is coming under pressure from his superiors Ralph Stanton, who fears that the government funding for NASA would be cut. Since those responsible classify a manned flight to be too dangerous, should first be sent into space a chimpanzee.

Billy, who feels himself to be an American, is teased at school because of his German ancestry. His grades are bad. Dr. Huber takes Billy into the premises with, to enable it to check how his son is doing homework. Billy learns there the person responsible for the training and for the selection of chimpanzees Donni McGuinness know. He befriends with the scientist as well as the chimpanzees Mac, who was separated from his mother early. Billy learns also the astronauts Alan Shepard know who takes him to flight with a training aircraft.

Dr. Huber is dedicated to his son more time. He tells Billy that he would never talk about his late wife, because the subject was too painful for him.

The boss of a space company Roger Thornhill offers Stanton to a manager post, if in future the missiles of the company would be used instead of the built by Dr. Huber. Stanton sabotaged the rocket before launch. Billy placed in the cage of Mac a radio to speak of home to him can. He hears a result of this system, such as Mac Stanton says that the monkey would burn up the next day.

Billy, his father and two alerted employees of Huber's review the rocket. You will discover some devastation they fix it. A destruction at a hard to reach place repaired little Billy.

The launch of the rocket is successful, it reaches a height of almost 300 kilometers. The employees of Huber's cheer. Suddenly they realize that the automatic ignition of the braking rockets will not work. Billy talks about radio to Mac, which ignites the braking rockets.

Reviews

Michael Rechtshaffen wrote in the magazine The Hollywood Reporter of 18 March 2002, the plot was largely fictional, but highly engaging. The interest of the viewer remains exist even though the plot at the beginning of a " clumsy patchwork " is. McNamara used effectively old archive material, which would be mounted together with the filming.

Awards

Sean McNamara won the Golden Gryphon of the Giffoni Film Festival in 2001. He occupied in 2002 to second place in the competition for the prize of the Children's Jury of the Chicago International Children's Film Festival and was nominated film festivals for the Starboy Award at the Oulu International Children's. In 2003 he was nominated for the WisKid Award of the Wisconsin International Children's Film Festival.

Background

The film was shot in Cocoa Beach, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Kennedy Space Center and Edwards Air Force Base.

Swell

2001 in film Screenplay Film score John Coda Jack McGee (actor) Cocoa Beach, Florida
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