This film set out to be comprehensive and engaging to the average viewer and IMHO succeeds on those terms. The you-are-there vibe is really quite good. You can vicariously get a feeling for what working at a rocket start-up might be like (I was in one briefly MANY years ago).
One observation is that the extreme visionary approaches tend to succeed. Peter Beck of Rocket Labs saw an opportunity and went for it; he (initially) envisioned smaller rockets than SpaceX at a reasonable cost (but with outstanding quality). Peter didn't let his lack of formal training stop him; he seems to be a of force of intellect -- interesting guy.
Planet Labs went for ultra-small low-cost satellites; in their initial experiments they used cell-phones as the payloads! They're a great example of *evolutionary* engineering, whereas SpaceX often does *revolutionary* engineering.
Chris Kemp at Astra Space seemed to believe he would be a player in this "space" (no pun) by sheer force of will. He's persuasive, but the company seemed to have a "me too" approach -- they wanted to be like Rocket Labs but cheaper. There didn't seem to be more to the business plan than that.
The movie does an excellent job of showing the evolution of these companies and how things worked out for them (it wasn't all good BTW). HOWEVER, the film doesn't go into technical details, such as WHY things went wrong; we're simply told things like an engine didn't fire (or cut off too soon).
This is a seven-star film for casual viewers, and probably a six-star film for those with relevant engineering skills (who might have appreciated a few more details). That's 6.5 stars overall, but I'm rounding down to six (6) stars due to some inaccurate statements about the impact of the Kessler Effect (which wouldn't prevent launches to higher orbits or other planets if it occurred).
