It’s shaping up to be the most ambitious and farthest-ranging documentary on the emerging commercial spaceflight industry so far. SpaceRace 2 (working title) is a production of DLI Productions, based in Québec. The crew has been at it since 2008, when they shot their first interviews with Elon Musk, Peter Diamandis, and others.
The production team spent an afternoon with me here at my place last month, and they say I’ll have a kind of starring role as the commentator “glue” holding the narrative together.
Producer Irene Angelico tells me that she and director Abbey Neidik have also shot interviews with Buzz Aldrin, Richard Branson, Jeff Greason, Lee Valentine, Eric Anderson, Mike Melvill, Brian Binnie, Bob Weiss, Bob Richards, George French II, Chuck Lauer, Dick Rutan, and George Whitesides, as well as entrepreneurs and engineers in Japan. “We will be filming with Chris Hadfield in August and Mae Jemison in September,” says Irene.
Irene and Abbey are partners in life as well as business, and the projects they pick are those that inspire them. They get why space travel is important and they see that the most influencial visionaries working to get us there to stay are in the private sector.
“Our broadcasters are Super Channel in English and Canal D in French and we are talking with broadcasters in the US, France, Australia and Japan, thus far,” Irene says. “We are also producing a website called The Space Advisor: A Space Traveller’s Guide to the Galaxy in English and French versions. Other language versions will follow. Before the broadcasts, we are planning to have a worldwide theatrical release in 2015.”
Stay tuned.