Released just after historic 1957 launch of Sputnik 1, the film recreates the work of early rocket developers (including American Goddard) with a focus on Soviet space pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. The biographical material is well made and interesting (as are the brief lessons in physics, ballistics and aeronautics) but the second half of the film, which speculates on the future of space exploration, is outstanding. The first manned flight (including 'space-walks') is predicted to carry three cosmonauts into orbit and the zero-G effects are incredibly realistic (apparently Kubrick used similar clever wirework in '2001 A Space Odyssey' (1968)). The film is extremely optimistic about the future of space travel and there is an excellent scene of gantry after gantry raising a row of streamlined rockets into takeoff positions. The segment about life on the rotating space station is also very well done (although being allowed to take your cat with you seems a stretch) with thought given to the kinds of research opportunities such a station would provide. The film closes with an excellent depiction of a manned lunar landing, the establishment of a lunar base, and the beginning of interplanetary exploration. While the images of the future don't match the reality (as of 2019), there is a shot of the first 'footprints on the moon', prefiguring one of the most famous images to come from the Apollo 11 landing twelve years later. 'Road to the Stars' is the best, most realistic, depiction of the future of space travel as envisioned at the optimistic dawn of the space-age that I have ever seen. Excellent at many levels.
