New documentary about New Mexico's rocket scientists and their Nazi past

HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON JULY 1969, A.D. WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND Those are the words written on a lunar plaque that, 65 years ago this summer, the three members of the Apollo 11 mission left behind on the moon, attached to the ladder of their lunar unit.

The other object they left behind, the American flag Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planted on the moon’s surface, has not been seen in years and may no longer be there. The flag’s pole didn’t withstand the blast of Saturn V’s exhaust, when the rocket set out for its return trip to Earth. But the lunar plaque remains and to this day, reminds us of an extraordinary human achievement and of the sentiments that accompanied it: hope for a beautiful world, hope for unity, and hope for kindness and love.

What the plaque does not speak to is that American rocket science, or rather the expertise in aerospace engineering and astrodynamics needed to put a human on the moon, is connected to the invention of weapons of mass destruction and a nuclear arms race. Worst yet, we owe much of our rocket science technology and that of the first moon landing to Nazi Germany. Enter The Atomic Rocketeer (2024, 64 minutes), the third documentary by award-winning filmmaker, producer, and writer Larry Sheffield.

The film speaks to how Americans brought in scientists, who at the time were linked to the highest echelons of the Third Reich, to help our country in its efforts to win the nuclear arms race.