PBS series Chasing the Moon

I tried to watch this three-part series, but the frequent reminders of how racist, sexist and hypocritical we are ruined it for me. The director, Robert Stone, appears to think the mammoth U.S. effort to land a man on the moon was tainted from the start. He looks for every opportunity to mention Wernher von Braun of course. The final episode (I made it through the first two) begins with a long look into von Braun, despite having already examined his work in Nazi Germany in a previous episode. I had had enough by then and stopped watching. Stone shows numerous interviews of von Braun in each episode, talking in his highly accented English; I get the feeling it’s partly to remind us of his past. Stone shows the same film clip of George Wallace in each of the first two episodes, as if that had anything to do with the space program. He spent a lot of time covering the first black astronaut candidate, implying he didn’t make the cut because of racism. Of course Stone has to reveal Chuck Yeager’s racism and use of the N-word (mustn’t actually spell it, because I’m white). He just can’t miss an opportunity to besmirch an American hero. I kid you not, Stone shows footage of black civil rights marchers being set upon by police dogs and knocked over by high-pressure fire hoses. He shows photos of MLK’s assassination and Vietnam War combat. He spends an inordinate amount of time on Polly Northcutt, one of very few women involved in the space program at the time. When he isn’t preaching to us, Stone shows some fascinating archival footage of NASA activities and personnel, and interesting footage of the astronauts and their families. If he could have resisted the urge to show us how awful we were then and stuck to the extraordinary achievements — and failures — of the space program, I would have absolutely loved this series. I should have known there would be frequent injections of America-hatred since it was a PBS production. It reminds me of some of the Ken Burns programs, which are high quality, but highly flavored by his leftward leanings.

von Braun is the man.
The stuff that guy knew came close to what "they" have always known.
He went to the top and made it happen.