HIGH DRAMA MARKS RACE INTO SPACE IN `UNTOLD STORY'.

Byline: David Kronke Television Critic

In the end, it was mainly about bragging rights.

Both the United States and the Soviet Union wanted to be the first to launch an orbiting satellite, to lift a living being beyond the stratosphere, to send a man to circle the planet, to land a man on the moon.

The science has largely been forgotten, and the notion of military superiority has been all but dismissed. But that sense of limitless adventure, that exhilaratingly reckless can-do spirit, lingers in the minds of Americans who lived during the quest to send rockets soaring beyond the shackles of gravity.

``Space Race: The Untold Story,'' a hybrid docudrama miniseries charting the mission to extend our domain into the chill vacuum beyond Earth's atmosphere, begins with the V-2 (for ``vengeance,'' viewers are informed) rocket developed by Nazi scientists during World War II and concludes with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's triumphal jaunt on the moon's dusty surface.

Airing tonight and Monday on the National Geographic Channel, ``Space Race'' is an odd duck, as these things go. It sports the authoritative narration and archival footage of a documentary, yet no talking-head historians, not even Deborah Cadbury, whose fascinating book ``Space Race'' serves as the inspiration for the production.

Instead, the miniseries is heavy on re-enactments, but not the staid, stiffly acted sort one usually associates with these types of projects. Instead, there's a pronounced cinematic quality to the re-enactments, which are by turns violent and action-packed or drenched with atmosphere. We're treated to the spectacle of scientists lounging at an old-fashioned diner, period tunes emanating from the jukebox, discussing in vaguely melodramatic dialogue the next iteration of their project or how to sell the concept of space travel to the American people.

This sort of thing could have played as hokey, but here, the notion of the space race bristles with an urgency an ordinary documentary couldn't have managed. While the actors portraying the major players don't seem to be striving for much in the way of characterizations, they deliver their lines briskly and in a manner that underscores what's at stake for both countries perfecting their rocket technologies. It's like Philip Kaufman's 1983 feature film ``The Right Stuff'' without the verbal and visual poetry.

Wernher von Braun is America's unlikely hero -- unlikely because he helped develop the Nazis' V-2 rocket. His troubling past, in fact, led to understandable mistrust from many in the American military, which almost cost the country its final victory in the race to the moon.

Meanwhile, with a dream team consisting of engineers Sergei Korolev and Vasily Mishin and fearless (if often expendable) cosmonauts such as Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, the Soviets' program enjoyed a string of successes: the launch of Sputnik, the first satellite; as well as Sputnik 2, the first craft to take an animal into orbit; and Luna 1 and 2, the first objects to escape Earth's orbit and reach the moon, respectively.

These successes came at grave costs, however, as the Soviets suffered spectacular disasters that killed hundreds, tragedies the government was nonetheless able to keep secret for decades.

``Space Race: The Untold Story'' proffers history as potboiler and proves that's not necessarily a bad thing.

David Kronke, [phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com

SPACE RACE: THE UNTOLD STORY - Three stars

What: Docudrama miniseries of America's and the Soviet Union's quest for supremacy in space travel.

Where: National Geographic Channel.

When: 9 tonight; 10 p.m. Monday.

In a nutshell: This sort of thing could play as hokey, but here, the notion of the space race bristles with an urgency an ordinary documentary couldn't have managed.