With the jarring force of a sledgehammer, a new documentary film by Peter Kuran pounds home once and for all the partnership between space exploration and thermonuclear war.

Its strength comes from its just-declassified raw footage: the sheer magnificence of the high-altitude nuclear tests, the hazy blue and orange auroras those megaton explosions brought forth, and the wickedly powerful disruption to global communications the blasts created.

One can practically feel the shockwaves emanating from the fiery explosions of the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile as it reached up to the sky and petered out, smashing to the ground..

But "Nukes In Space: The Rainbow Bombs" eventually fails as a wholistic portrayal of the subject matter claimed by its title. It feels more like a visual chronology (an invaluable resources on its own) than a complete documentary of the history of nuclear technology and the space program.

But with only a 52-minute minute running time, one wonders whether Kuran -- who also made the award-winning two-hour film, "The Atomic Bomb Movie," -- intended "Nukes in Space" to be primarily a venue for the declassified footage well-promoted on the back of the movie box.

The video sets its pace with key dates in the development of the ICBM, the far-reaching missile that made America's air-defense systems obsolete.

It's a race, with the Soviets and the Americans ruthlessly striving to beat each other out to the milestones; the Soviets would win the first leg with the launch of Sputnik.

The blastoff of the ball of iron on October 4, 1957 wrought a frightening reality for the rest of the world: for the first time, humans had the ability to launch missiles across the oceans, from the heart of the Soviet Empire to the shores of the United States.

Sparks flew in Washington, as leaders pushed on plans to launch a satellite of their own. And when the first U.S. satellite finally went up in 1958, an inadvertent discovery was made: a doughnut-shaped belt of radiation trapped by the Earth's magnetic field.

The Van Allen Belt, as it would be called, would be the testing ground for the Rainbow Bombs, nuclear bombs exploded in the Belt and named for the colorful effect of their blast. The Belt would also be the arena for the underlying issue of the film: What will be of space? Peace, or war?

Regardless of its weaknesses, the narration by William Shatner is excellent, as is the soundtrack from the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. And the film's tremendous video clips make a viewing -- even a purchase for your home library -- well worth it. But as a documentary, Kuran's treatment feels rushed, like flipping pages through a history book. For greater detail, turn to "The Atomic Bomb Movie."