Sometime in the early fall of 2002, MetaFilter ran a link, seen on Slashdot too, about the mockumentary-in-progress entitled Man Conquers Space.

Unfortunately, MeFi’s search is unreliable at present, so I can’t link to the original post. But it caught my eye, and I went to the creator’s site to see what could be seen. What I found surprised me.

In a short sample clip I viewed, I was astounded to see the strange, missed-chance vision of the 1950’s idea of what a space race might produce, persuasively brought to life and framed as a documentary.

Poking around a bit, I noticed that the creator of the film, David Sander, had also built his own space suit replicas! I immediately pitched a story to my editors at Cinescape, who on seeing the same clip green lighted it.

So in October I was told I’d need to have the story in by midmonth, so I fired off a batch of questions via email to David. He graciously replied, and I completed my article and submitted it. Months later, the magazine is on the shelves, and I can present the balance of the material here.

To quickly summarize, David is using a series of articles originally published in Collier’s magazine in the 1950s which featured space art from Chesley Bonestell and other visionary space and SF artists of the day in visualization of a projected space program developed with input from the most influential space and rocketry professionals of the day, including the ever-controversial Werner von Braun.

The images from the magazines played a large role in establishing the fifties’ idea of what the future should look like – after all, if rockets in the future would carry enormous planar tailfins, why can’t the family sedan? This gives the visualizations a peculiar impact, both in the context of the original art and David’s meticulous recreation of the future of the past.

I’ll save my personal critical analysis for the conclusion of the interview material. For the next five days, David will hold forth on his project, Man Conquers Space, and the inspiration for it. I hope you find it as interesting as I do.