For All Mankind

[MattMason]

Years ago, I was an administrator on an unofficial but popular wiki for Battlestar Galactica. Some crew of the show, including NASA scientist Dr. Kevin Grazier (technical advisor) and Bradley Thompson (co-writer with David Weddle) would contribute and answer a few fun questions of the show.

So hearing about Ron Moore making an alternative-history of the space problem sounded good. Seeing the credits with Thompson and Weddle's name, I realized I was in for another fun ride. I have not been disappointed.

The characterizations are so well done (the guy doing Nixon just deserves an Emmy right now) that it's easy to overlook what few technical gaffes or errors are made for drama or simplicity. The show does well in not dumping on our legends without reason and making fictionalized characters to aid in the plot to avoid this.

Lots of great homework done in the show. Knowing that the Saturn V production was cut before Apollo 11 even flew (1967) takes a little digging. And so NASA gets a boost in their already crazy budget.

Some events never happen (Apollo 13, ASTP) but sooner or later, the hammer falls as Moore, Thompson and Weddle did on many a BSG episode. The space race explodes into events that came to be (or never) slowly with a curb-stomp win of the Moon. Ted Kennedy never had a Chappaquiddick. Nixon's Watergate was likely exposed just prior to the election. A Saturn V meets a dramatic demise (mathematically, it should've, too).

Some characterizations of historic figures were a little more miss than hit. Gene Kranz doing an epic speech was nice, although the actor didn't look as fatherly or pleasantly gruff as our real one or as Ed Harris played him in the film. They avoid making Chris Kraft into a character because he'll come back from the dead to haunt the writers forever.

I like Deke Slayton's portrayal. Rather balanced. Lots of mysteries of where some others have come, gone, or never were. Al Shepard, for one.

As the show goes one, Apollo's influence is apparently causing the tech to go to the Moon to greatly accelerate. They already have primitive desktop computers by 1974ish.

Overall, a fun ride with lots of wham as it pleasantly goes off the rails. I agree with others that we will have an ASTP-like moment when survival trumps nationalism. It should be when Deke is on the Moon, and he has to meet Alexei Leonov.

[hektor]

Ep 8 was going too far on the soap side for my taste.

Apollo 24 back-up crew seems an interesting group though.

[MATTBLAK]

I liked the Episode 8 'soap' storyline. I felt it was a reasonable and logical extrapolation of how an Astronaut Wife - a Navy one - would cope with an almost impossible stress and dilemma situation. Of course, no Astronaut or Cosmonaut for that matter has to my knowledge ever had to face a situation like Baldwin had to.

It's an interesting situation to ponder.

[sanman]

I don't understand how families of the astronauts would have a direct videoconferencing connection to them out in space.

It does bring up the conundrum of whether communications/news should be filtered in order to avoid causing additional stress to astronauts, which could jeopardize their mission and their lives.

[Joris]

I imagine a disaster like the one in episode 9 would be bad for public support for the program. Would the historical program have been cut short if apollo 13 ended with fatalities?

Not even considering the international incident at the end, the next episode might feature some generals and lawyers at mission control.

[shiro]

Perhaps there was too much tears and drama in the 8th episode, while we didn’t get enough action in space. But I should admit that it’s definitely one of my favorite episodes so far. I agree with MATTBLAK’s opinion that it shows a pretty realistic view on how bad news can (or probably can’t) be told to an astronauts during the mission. I also was touched by Shantel Van Santen’s performance as she really brought her character to life.

But today’s episode is a little disappointment for me. Yes, it’s (finally!) a really action-packed one, but the pace of the story had suddenly skyrocketed leaving us without almost any technical details or sometimes just without any realistic explanation of what’s going on. Also I’m not a fan of the darker mood of the latest episodes. When the whole series have just started, it looked like some utopian science fiction. But in fact, it’s mostly a psychological drama so far.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

I think this is a pretty fair summary

https://twitter.com/djsnm/status/1205583834898583557

Well the latest episode of @forallmankind_ is the most Kerbal by far, enjoyed it all even though I can poke plenty of  holes in the technical side of everything.

[Markstark]

That was a wild episode. Also, the end, what the?!!

[Orbiter]

That was a wild episode. Also, the end, what the?!!

I really don't think any of the Apollo astronauts would have mistreated a cosmonaut like that, nationalism aside.

This show is jumping the shark.

[shiro]

Yeah, the last scene was very disturbing for me.

Ironically, the current timeline of the show is supposed to be somewhere in 1975, the year when the actual Apollo–Soyuz flight had happened. Fortunately, in the real life astronauts and cosmonauts dealt with each other much better.

[sanman]

The final scene caught me off guard - I was expecting Baldwin to simply let him inside.

It's not clear what all the US mining equipment is being used for. It seems like all they're doing so far is filling up some suitcases with ice. Do you really need that much of a setup to accomplish that?

How can the Soviets have such a heavy lunar surface vehicle? Had the Soviet space program been successful in getting to the Moon, were there any lunar rover designs on their drawing boards?
The Apollo lunar rovers look much more mass-efficient and utilitarian. The Soviet vehicle looked almost like a small tank -- ie. something from sci-fi artwork and not practical hardware that real engineers would have come up with, given their constraints.

[dglow]

The Apollo lunar rovers look much more mass-efficient and utilitarian. The Soviet vehicle looked almost like a small tank -- ie. something from sci-fi artwork and not practical hardware that real engineers would have come up with, given their constraints.

Agree. From a storytelling/filmmaking perspective, the challenge becomes 'how do we show this is a foreign vehicle without using expository dialogue, by sight alone?' Whereas logically one would expect independent lunar rover designs to arrive at many similar solutions, visually the Soviet rover in the show had to quickly communicate 'not ours' using only a few seconds of screen time.

I really don't think any of the Apollo astronauts would have mistreated a cosmonaut like that, nationalism aside.

This show is jumping the shark.

This is my fear as well, but I'm invested at this point and even more interested to see where it goes. MattMason captured it well above:

Overall, a fun ride with lots of wham as it pleasantly goes off the rails.

[LM13]

It's not clear what all the US mining equipment is being used for. It seems like all they're doing so far is filling up some suitcases with ice. Do you really need that much of a setup to accomplish that?

My impression is that they're actually melting ice to fill up their reusable lunar module (the LSAM, it was called last episode, the one with four engines, presumably RL-10s). 

That last scene was chilling, but artfully done--the Sinatra music really sold it. 

This is not to excuse Ed's act of cold-blooded homicide, but isn't the cosmonaut's use of the Americans' elevator a violation of the Outer Space Treaty? 

[MATTBLAK]

That was a wild episode. Also, the end, what the?!!

I really don't think any of the Apollo astronauts would have mistreated a cosmonaut like that, nationalism aside.

This show is jumping the shark.

A little, yeah. I know Baldwin would be very stressed out. But after receiving the actual news of his Son's fate from the Soviets and NOT from the ground initially, I expected him to be a bit more circumspect about the Cosmonauts, if not actually that hostile as to attempt murder. I think something will turn him back from carrying out the killing all the way - but then again I'm prepared to be wrong.

[CitabriaFlyer]

I served as a USAF flight surgeon in Iraq 12 years ago.  I was offended by Baldwin's behavior as it is the antithesis of the chivalry and respect that American military officers have shown their enemies in past conflicts and are expected to demonstrate today.

See this link:
https://www.space.com/22510-neil-armstrong-astronaut-icon-remembered.html

And contrast Baldwin's conduct in a non combat environment with Armstrong's conduct in the midst of a shooting war.  I understand that Neil Armstrong was reluctant for this story to ever be made public, but it speaks volumes about the caliber of man he was, far more than his extraordinary engineering and flying accomplishments ever could.

[su27k]

Let's not overreact, it's a freaking cliffhanger, we don't know what happened next.

My guess is he's doing it to incapacitate the cosmonaut and take him prisoner.

[Markstark]

Let's not overreact, it's a freaking cliffhanger, we don't know what happened next.

My guess is he's doing it to incapacitate the cosmonaut and take him prisoner.

Hadn’t considered that. That would make a lot of sense.

[hektor]

The idea being that Space Race never stops, I think the end of Season 1 should explain why it continues into Season 2. The cosmonaut incident is part of that.

I also start wondering if Ronald Reagan could be elected in 1976 in this Universe...

Part of the Apollo 25 suspense in this episode was killed by the fact that it had already been confirmed that Molly Cobb would be a lead character of Season 2.

[Oli]

Episode 9 was hilarious.

Let's not overreact, it's a freaking cliffhanger, we don't know what happened next.

My guess is he's doing it to incapacitate the cosmonaut and take him prisoner.

Waterboarding in 0.17g 

I think Ed completely lost it, probably sabotaged the guy's rover.

[sanman]

Where is Apollo 24 now going though? Is it on some uncontrolled burn? Will Ellen-Deke-Harry make it to the Moon? That seems to be part of the cliffhanger too.

I thought Apollo missions needed to do the fliparound and re-docking of the CM to the LM en route:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposition,_docking,_and_extraction

I presume Harry is the Command Module Pilot who will do the re-docking, and if they make it to the Moon then Harry will likely stay in orbit while Ellen as mission commander will go down to the surface along with Deke in the LM.

At some point, Ed is going to have some 'splainin' to do. 
While that scene of the dot-matrix printer reaming away looks very 70s-ish, I wonder if NASA would've really sought to use printer paper on a lunar mission, since its supply would be limited.

I wonder why the Soviets are being so intrusive? Could it be that they simply haven't discovered any ice of their own yet, and want the American stash? They at least knew to set down by Shackleton, which would indicate a water motive.
It seems to me that Jamestown base would have been better off being set down as close as possible to the mining site on the crater rim, as there doesn't seem to be any benefit in having to travel much distance to it (other than plot suspense).