Author Topic: For All Mankind (Read 227800 times)

Coastal Ron · « **Reply #400 on:** 03/19/2021 07:41 pm »

Quote from: old_geez on 03/19/2021 07:17 pm

The timeline has me a little perplexed. We are about 9-10 years after the end of Series One where Kelly had nor yet been born. Now she is there at age 16 ish.
Karen said the line “then you came along, and everything changed”.
Is she their biological child or adopted?

My assumption was that she was adopted, and that she may have been part of the children evacuated out of Viet Nam by the end of that war. Read about Operation Babylift and other effort.

Blackstar · « **Reply #401 on:** 03/19/2021 09:17 pm »

Quote from: old_geez on 03/19/2021 07:17 pm

The timeline has me a little perplexed. We are about 9-10 years after the end of Series One where Kelly had nor yet been born. Now she is there at age 16 ish.
Karen said the line “then you came along, and everything changed”.
Is she their biological child or adopted?

She's adopted. That becomes an issue in future episodes.

Robotbeat · « **Reply #402 on:** 03/20/2021 12:41 pm »

Quote from: old_geez on 03/19/2021 07:17 pm

The timeline has me a little perplexed. We are about 9-10 years after the end of Series One where Kelly had nor yet been born. Now she is there at age 16 ish.
Karen said the line “then you came along, and everything changed”.
Is she their biological child or adopted?

Isnt it clear they adopted? Also, super heartwarming episode. That one made me change my mind about the series from a slog I’m watching for the interesting alt space history and hard scifi to enjoying it for the character development.

Robotbeat · « **Reply #403 on:** 03/20/2021 12:44 pm »

Quote from: r8ix on 03/19/2021 07:12 pm

I was bothered by the physically impossible maneuvers for the T-38s in the dogfight scene last week, but actually more bothered by the ejection with one engine out.

Yeah, those maneuvers didn’t seem feasible LOL (although look nice on-screen). But I interpreted the bail-out as being due to some on-board fire, not just an engine-out.

r8ix · « **Reply #404 on:** 03/20/2021 04:54 pm »

Quote from: Robotbeat on 03/20/2021 12:44 pm

Quote from: r8ix on 03/19/2021 07:12 pm
I was bothered by the physically impossible maneuvers for the T-38s in the dogfight scene last week, but actually more bothered by the ejection with one engine out.
Yeah, those maneuvers didn’t seem feasible LOL (although look nice on-screen). But I interpreted the bail-out as being due to some on-board fire, not just an engine-out.

Well, he kept trying to relight the engine, or that's what it looked like to me, so...

sanman · « **Reply #405 on:** 03/20/2021 11:59 pm »

Ah, so in the newsreel @1:37 below it does specifically mention Reagan's SDI, but only in passing:

Does SDI then remain just mainly on the drawing boards, even in this much more space-intensive timeline?

Blackstar · « **Reply #406 on:** 03/23/2021 03:34 pm »

https://thespacereview.com/article/4145/1

This woman’s work: “For All Mankind” and women’s pain
by Emily Carney
Monday, March 22, 2021

In February, Apple TV+’s “For All Mankind” debuted its second season (see “It is very cold in space: Season 2 of ‘For All Mankind’”, The Space Review, February 8, 2021), and caught up with the women characters we’ve grown acquainted with during the show’s first season. Perhaps the most notable and unique characteristic of “For All Mankind” is how it depicts its women—astronauts, ground support crew, and wives/mothers—as real people with real issues, similar to how the AMC show “Mad Men” turned the image of the well-coiffed, lipsticked 1960s woman inside out during its seven seasons. In the new episodes of “For All Mankind”, its cadre of women are again front and center, and are all experiencing deep emotional and/or physical pain as the events of the 1980s unfold. “For All Mankind’s” women deny the presence of pain at all, or reveal it only after it’s shoved vividly into the forefront. (Note: this piece contains spoilers of “For All Mankind” Season 1, and the first four episodes of Season 2.)

From its very start, Season 2 references the visible and invisible loads its women carry. Season 1 ended with astronaut Danielle Poole (played by Krys Marshall) literally embodying physical pain, as she breaks her arm—on purpose—to save colleague Gordo Stevens’ career, following his mental breakdown at Jamestown, NASA’s Moon base by Shackleton Crater. This creates an impression at NASA that Stevens “saved” her on Jamestown, and that she was a weak addition to the crew, even though the opposite is the case. We also find out that during the last decade, she was attempting to save her distressed Vietnam veteran husband, but to no avail. Her reputation still sullied by the “accident” at Jamestown, Poole has effectively sacrificed her own career ambitions to save troubled men.

Robotbeat · « **Reply #407 on:** 03/23/2021 04:25 pm »

Gordon’s arc is my favorite.

sanman · « **Reply #408 on:** 03/23/2021 10:42 pm »

Quote from: Robotbeat on 03/23/2021 04:25 pm

Gordon’s arc is my favorite.

I too find him to be the most compelling character since the end of Season 1, because of the deep troubles he's going through, and the humbling it's given him. The actor playing him, Michael Dorman, is also good, and reminds me a bit of Bill Paxton.

During Season 1, I liked Tracy's story arc the most, because as some fluke add-on to the astronaut program, she was coming from behind and having to prove herself worthy. Yet from the start of Season 2, they've taken her down a notch by having her overshoot into the world of celebrity.

Beyond those two, I liked Molly and Margot for their conventional toughness, and it's interesting to see that they've now both wound up working together more closely on the ground.

Robotbeat · « **Reply #409 on:** 03/27/2021 01:41 am »

I really liked the latest episode that just "aired." It's about the Apollo-Soyuz project and the development behind it (besides other important character development stuff with other characters).

Actually makes me a bit emotional. In real life, we could have ended up murdering tens of millions of each other with rockets. Instead, we've used those rockets to be space friends. That's f***ing awesome. I hope we never forget that. It's more important than Apollo was, in a sense.

sanman · « **Reply #410 on:** 03/27/2021 02:23 am »

[SPOILER]The opening scenes had me eyerolling a little at first, because the Soviets came across as cardboard cutouts, but that then set up the opening up between the 2 sides and their mutual reconciliation with each other, which was nice.

Did that docking solution they came up with have any basis in real life, as an actual engineering concept?

Regarding the use of the LEM -- is it some kind of next-generation LEM, or something?

Aha, we did indeed get to see more of Dr Sally Ride, it turns out. So this makes me speculate that Sally Ride will be the first woman on Mars.[/SPOILER]

Robotbeat · « **Reply #411 on:** 03/27/2021 02:41 am »

[SPOILER]The docking system they discuss is the APAS docking system, the androgenous docking system. The details of who developed the system, and some of the motivation of an androgenous system, were liberties that the show took, but acceptable to me as this is, after all, alternate history! Read about the real life thing here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgynous_Peripheral_Attach_System[/SPOILER]

libra · « **Reply #412 on:** 03/27/2021 12:14 pm »

Sanman: Stephen Baxter's Voyage - Natalie York was inspired, by who ?

Blackstar · « **Reply #413 on:** 03/27/2021 12:34 pm »

The "LM" is referred to as an LSAM, which I think stands for Lunar Surface Access Module. There is dialogue indicating that they had three: the original one used in the early 1970s which is no longer flyable and is used for parts, and two others, which are referred to as a bit rickety. As you saw in season 1, the LSAM is refuelable and used to go to and from the lunar surface. It's also bigger than a standard LM and looks like it can hold up to four people internally.

sanman · « **Reply #414 on:** 03/27/2021 07:55 pm »

Quote from: libra on 03/27/2021 12:14 pm

Sanman: Stephen Baxter's Voyage - Natalie York was inspired, by who ?

Ah, I'd never read it, and so didn't realize. But with a quick google, I see it mentions an "Ares" rocket, so that makes me wonder if that didn't help to inspire the naming of the rocket for NASA's Constellation program.

Quote from: Blackstar on 03/27/2021 12:34 pm

The "LM" is referred to as an LSAM, which I think stands for Lunar Surface Access Module. There is dialogue indicating that they had three: the original one used in the early 1970s which is no longer flyable and is used for parts, and two others, which are referred to as a bit rickety. As you saw in season 1, the LSAM is refuelable and used to go to and from the lunar surface. It's also bigger than a standard LM and looks like it can hold up to four people internally.

It's interesting to see them using it as a helicopter gunship. That then opens questions as to what the Soviets have on their end.

I came across a video which mentions a real life Soviet-made 23mm-cannon for their Almaz space station:

Since that's probably one of the only real life examples of space-based armaments, I wonder if something like it will make an appearance on the show?

Robotbeat · « **Reply #415 on:** 03/29/2021 09:21 pm »

I was thinking about this latest episode again. The reason the Soviets looks so joyless isn’t necessarily because their life is all hell in the Soviet Union (although the lower standard of living doesn’t help) but because the whole USSR is kind of scared s***less of war/invasion in that timeline and here they are visiting their arch enemy. (Also, the cultural difference: in America, the forced smile is very much a thing everyone learns in service industry jobs.)

Anyway. Just an observation.

sanman · « **Reply #416 on:** 04/03/2021 08:25 am »

Various interesting events in this latest episode...

[SPOILERS]The Soviet shootdown of the KAL passenger airliner as a trigger for heightened Cold War tensions and superpower confrontation. So that's the end of Thomas Paine, then.

Daniel Poole's "visitor" -- it was Sergei Korolev, wasn't it? In the credits, he's merely listed as "Soviet Chief Engineer", but when he introduces himself to her as simply "engineer", it made me think he was Korolev. Then when he darkly mentions the gulag, it definitely made me think he was Korolev. And when he casually gestures at other leading names of the Soviet space program etched on the door (Gagarin, Leonov, Tereshkova, etc), it was really hard not to think he was Korolev. Did Korolev have some kind of weakness for cured meat, btw?

I'm surprised Margot was able to tip off her Soviet counterpart about the SRB O-ring problem right under the noses of security officials, when the SRBs are meant for use with a militarized Buran shuttle. So America has not suffered the Challenger disaster, and the Soviets are prevented from having one of their own.
If the Soviets are using pilfered SRB designs, then they're not using the Energia booster (yet). Perhaps it's Margot's tipoff which might get the Soviets to switch Buran over to Energia in the future.

The humming of Ride of the Valkyries, as per the famous scene from Apocalypse Now, was a cute addition to their use of the LSAM as a sort of Huey helicopter in their raid on the drilling site. Lunar water is the new precious natural resource being fought over, like oil.

It's however hard to believe that civilian personnel, including NASA administrators would be undertaking any kind of military operation, even in space. I don't understand how Ellen as the new acting NASA Administrator gets to order what amounts to a military special operations raid on the Moon, even with President Reagan's backing. And technically it's hubby Larry who eggs her into it, like a demonstration of Butterfly Effect.

Wouldn't a military operation in space be run by the US military, with NASA only providing technical support?[/SPOILERS]

su27k · « **Reply #417 on:** 04/03/2021 03:13 pm »

That's unfortunate, he didn't get a lot of screen time but the time he had made the character alive and actually likeable.

ncb1397 · « **Reply #418 on:** 04/03/2021 03:32 pm »

Quote from: sanman on 04/03/2021 08:25 am

Various interesting events in this latest episode...

[SPOILERS]

The humming of Ride of the Valkyries, as per the famous scene from Apocalypse Now, was a cute addition to their use of the LSAM as a sort of Huey helicopter in their raid on the drilling site. Lunar water is the new precious natural resource being fought over, like oil.
[/SPOILERS]

I believe the mining site they are contesting is lithium, not water. It is used for battery cells for their lunar base (lunar night being long, energy storage is important although they mention it is nuclear powered so that is sort of incongruous).

spaceman3 · « **Reply #419 on:** 04/03/2021 05:48 pm »

Quote from: sanman on 04/03/2021 08:25 am

Various interesting events in this latest episode...

[SPOILERS]

Daniel Poole's "visitor" -- it was Sergei Korolev, wasn't it? In the credits, he's merely listed as "Soviet Chief Engineer", but when he introduces himself to her as simply "engineer", it made me think he was Korolev. Then when he darkly mentions the gulag, it definitely made me think he was Korolev. And when he casually gestures at other leading names of the Soviet space program etched on the door (Gagarin, Leonov, Tereshkova, etc), it was really hard not to think he was Korolev. Did Korolev have some kind of weakness for cured meat, btw?

[/SPOILERS]

If you look up the episode on IMDB, it says that character was indeed Korolev:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11784180/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast

I too wish there was more of him in the episode (which I really liked)!