If you missed the final launch of the Space Shuttle, or the first private spacecraft rendezvous with the International Space Station, fear not. A new documentary to be released late this year promises you a fiery, 3-D, launch-pad view of these historic flights.

A preview (above) of the film, Space Shuttle & The New Pioneers, was unveiled at the SETICON II conference June 22 in Santa Clara, California. The film chronicles the final days of the Space Shuttle program, from inside NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral in Florida.

But since executive producer David Knight felt he couldnt end the movie by saying 12,000 people were laid off, the film also follows the beginnings of the private space flight boom, as companies likeSpaceX blast up to orbit.

The movies makers are crowdsourcing some of theirfunding through the website Kickstarteruntil June 30. The film, planned for limited theatrical release, will be availableon 3-D Blu-ray, as well as 2-D high-definition DVD, and will be provided for free to educational institutions, in the hopes of exciting kids about science and technology. Wired talked with Knight at SETICON about the film and the future of manned spaceflight.

Wired: Why did you decide to make this movie?

David Knight: When we started, it was a notion that somebody ought to cover the last missions of the space shuttle program. There had been many, many documentaries that tell you what the space shuttle is and about the astronauts and the crews, but nobody was covering the end of the space shuttle program and why it was ending. It wasnt a simple answer, like Congress forgot the money. And what comes after it? It turns out a plethora of things are coming after it that arent just what SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is doing.

Early in the process I found myself standing underneath the Shuttle Discovery with Charles Bolden, the head of NASA, and I realized that there couldnt be a more important mission than getting young people excited about science and technology.

Wired: How did you first get involved in the spaceflight scene?

Knight:Back in 2003, I was visiting my parents and my brother had brought a stack of magazines. There was a copy of Wired, and on the cover was this crazy bug-eyed looking machine a thing called SpaceShipOne, developed by the famous aircraft designer Burt Rutan. Burt Rutan was building this using financing from the co-founder of Microsoft, Paul Allen. And they were going to compete for the $10 million AnsariX Prize.

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Preview: 3-D Space Shuttle Movie Will Bring the Launch Pad to Your Living Room