The Historic Spaceflight Cinematic Universe
Humanity is a space-faring species, probably the only one in the known universe. This has been an extraordinary turn of events in the 3.8 billion-year story of life on Earth. The incredible first steps that humans took to enter the wider cosmos were heroic, & heartbreaking. Those first steps are rendered as a contest between empires and against the unforgiving laws of physics. It was all very dramatic stuff. So, of course, we like to make movies about how all of that went down. Why wouldn’t we?
We have, indeed, made quite a few movies and series about the various efforts of human space travel. If we string together these various entries of the human spaceflight story we get an informal Historic Spaceflight Cinematic Universe.
This is not a real, coordinated cinematic universe, like the cinematic universe Marvel and Disney plan out years at a time. Instead, a Historic Spaceflight Cinematic Universe (HSCU) is coincidental and unplanned. Entries bubble up inependently from random quadrants of the film industry, even from different countries. Taken all together, however, and you begin to see a complete picture. Watching the sequence of films and episodes on this list, you will be taken through a dramatized account of the Space Race of the 1960s and through to the era of space stations and space shuttles.
Most of the chapters of this impromptu universe are films of US origin. And most of those US films are crafted as tales of patriotic glory, stories of USians overcoming the limitations of the physical universe and the Soviet Empire to advance to cause of the United States of America. This seems like the normal perspective until you start watching historic spaceflight films out of Russia, which champion their own contributions to space travel as patriotic endeavors to the Russian cause. Someone else’s patriotism always seems a little silly and a touch dangerous — a lesson USians are starting to learn within this unofficial cinematic universe list. For example, Lucy In The Sky, a controversial addition to this list, speak more to the lives of astronauts than to the nationalist goals of spacefaring nations. All of this contributes to a possible academic thesis, or at least a college course that chronicles humanity’s changing attitudes toward real-life space travel in docu-dramatized fiction.
Most of the entries within the Historic Spaceflight Cinematic Universe list are films with the exception of 1998’s From The Earth To The Moon. This HBO series from the late 1990’s, starring and produced by Tom Hanks, is incredibly well told. From The Earth To The Moon is only 12 episodes and intentionally dodges well-known tellings of historic spaceflight, such as the previous films The Right Stuff and Apollo 13. It is this HBO series that serves as a backbone to the idea of a Historic Spaceflight Cinematic Universe list. From The Earth To The Moon features, in my opinion, one of the greatest opening themes of the HSCU, too. Take a listen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7BjEKv3GWE
There are other series, too. The BBC created a four-episode docudrama called simply Space Race in 2005, and The Right Stuff was remade into an eight-episode miniseries for Disney+. They both appear on the list below.
Before I get into the meat of the list here, a note: I will update the Historic Spaceflight Cinematic Universe list periodically as new information and consideration come to light. There will be a change log at the very bottom of this article keeping up with the coming alterations.
So, delaying no more, here is the list of films and series episodes, in chronological order of history they portray, that make up the informal Historic Spaceflight Cinematic Universe:
THE HISTORIC SPACEFLIGHT CINEMATIC UNIVERSE
1 — Korolyov — 2007 / The rise of Sergei Korolyov
2 — “Race For Rockets” — Space Race — 2005 / Sergei Korolyov and Wernher von Braun rocket research in post-WWII period
3 — Chief — 2015 / Sergei Korolyov, Sputnik 1, Vostok 1, Voskhod 2
4 — “Race For Satellites” — Space Race — 2005 / Sputnik 1, Sputnik 2, Vanguard, Explorer 1
5 — Taming Of The Fire — 1972 / Sputnik 1, Vostok 1
6— October Sky — 1991 / Sputnik 1
7 — Paper Soldier — 2008 / Early Vostok flights
8 — “Sierra Hotel” — The Right Stuff (series) — 2020 / Mercury program
9 — “Goodies” — The Right Stuff (series) — 2020 / Mercury program
10— “Single Warrior Combat” — The Right Stuff (series) — 2020 / Mercury program— “Advent” — The Right Stuff (series) — 2020 / Mercury program
11 — “The Kona Kai Seance” — The Right Stuff (series) — 2020 / Mercury program
12 — “Vostok” — The Right Stuff (series) — 2020 / Mercury program, Vostok 1
13 — “Race For Survival” — Space Race — 2005 / Vostok 1, Freedom 7
14— Gagarin: First in Space (a.k.a., First Man In Space)—2013 / Vostok 1
15 — “Ziggurat” — The Right Stuff (series) — 2020 / Mercury program, Vostok 1
16— The Right Stuff — 1983 / Project Mercury, Vostok
17— “Can We Do This?” — From The Earth To The Moon, episode 1— 1998 / Project Mercury, Project Gemini
18 — “Flight” — The Right Stuff (series) — 2020 / Mercury program, Vostok 1
19— Hidden Figures — 2016 / Project Mercury, Freedom 7
20— The Age Of Pioneers (a.k.a., The Spacewalker) — 2017 / Voskhod 2
21— “Apollo 1” — From The Earth To The Moon, episode 2 — 1998 / Apollo 1
22 — “We Have Cleared The Tower” — From The Earth To The Moon, episode 3–1998 / Apollo 7
23— “1968” — From The Earth To The Moon, episode 4–1998 / Apollo 8
24— “Spider” — From The Earth To The Moon, episode 5–1998 / Apollo 9, Apollo 10
25 — “Mare Tranquilitatis” — From The Earth To The Moon, episode 6–1998 / Apollo 11
26 — First Man — 2018 / Gemini 8, Apollo 11
27 — Apollo 11–1996 / Apollo 11
28 — The Dish — 2000 / Apollo 11
29 — “Moondust” — The Crown, season 3, episode 7–2019 / Apollo 11
30 — “Race For The Moon” — Space Race — 2005 / Voskhod 2, Apollo 1 through Apollo 11
31— “That’s All There Is” — From The Earth To The Moon, episode 7–1998 / Apollo 12
32 — Apollo 13–1995 / Apollo 13
33— “We Interrupt This Program” — From The Earth To The Moon, episode 8–1998 / Apollo 13
34— “For Miles And Miles” — From The Earth To The Moon, episode 9–1998 / Apollo 14
35— “Galileo Was Right” — From The Earth To The Moon, episode 10–1998 / Apollo 15
36 — “The Original Wives Club” — From The Earth To The Moon, episode 11–1998 / Apollo 16
37 — “Le Voyage Dans La Lune” — From The Earth To The Moon, episode 12–1998 / Apollo 17
38— Salyut 7–2017 / Soyuz T-13
39— Challenger — 1990 / STS-51-L, Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion
40— The Challenger Disaster — 2013 / STS-51-L, Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion
41— The Challenger Disaster *— 2019 / STS-51-L, Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion
42 — “Three, Two, One…” — The Newsreader — 2021 / STS-51-L, Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion
43 — “The Challenger” — This Is Us — 2022 / STS-51-L, Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion
44— Lucy In The Sky**— 2020 / STS-121, Space Shuttle Discovery
Change Log: (no changes as of August 2024)
*The Challenger Disaster of 2019 is a partly fictionalized account, featuring fictional characters. Future revisions may remove it from the list.
**Lucy In The Sky is very loosely based on astronaut Lisa Nowak. Future revisions may remove it from the list.
