Imagining a black space program, whose "blackstronauts" were excluded from "White NASA", the film lampoons Burns's history of the Negro leagues, a subject of his 1994 series, Baseball.

Using spaceships cobbled together from old rocket engines, landing capsules, a school bus, and a used Cadillac, NASSA quickly becomes a major player in the space race.

Sullivan Carew dies a hero's death when his rocket-powered school bus burns up in the atmosphere, while Peter "Stinky Pete" Carver catches fire in an Illinois church parking lot.

Unlike NASA, however, the blackstronauts refuse to slow the pace of their program (Stinky Pete is extinguished and makes another launch the following day).

It is a parody of the real-life letter by Union Army soldier Sullivan Ballou, which was used by Ken Burns in his documentary The Civil War.

NASA attempts to lure away those members of NASSA who have light skin and can pass as white, including Gordon Cooper and Buzz Aldrin.

On September 31, 1966, Suitcase Jefferson and Louie Hayes land their rocket-powered Coupe de Ville on the surface of the Moon and return safely to Earth.