Norman Grant (
James Garner) is a former war hero turned senator who tirelessly promotes the American space program despite almost insurmountable opposition. Other principal players include John Pope (
Harry Hamlin), who, after failing to win his way to Annapolis, matriculates from a Navy recruit to a naval officer, Naval Aviator, test pilot and pioneering astronaut in the company of fellow space-traveler Randy Claggett (
Beau Bridges); Penny Hardesty Pope (
Blair Brown), an ambitious and beautiful counsel to Senator Grant since his election and wife of John Pope; Leopold Strabismus (
David Dukes), a hedonistic wheeler-dealer who hopes to capitalize on the
1947 UFO scare; German rocket scientist Dieter Kolff (
Michael York), whose ideals (or lack thereof) are put to the test when he shifts his allegiance from the Nazis to the Americans; and Stanley Mott (
Bruce Dern), an aeronautical engineer whose secret assignment is to make certain that men like Kolff aren't snatched up by the Soviets after the fall of Germany. ==Cast and crew==