Author Topic: For All Mankind (Read 227801 times)

sanman · « **Reply #500 on:** 04/20/2021 09:43 am »

In a timeline where the United States has discovered water on the Moon first, and thus gives priority to lunar resource exploitation, then it seems less likely that the Space Shuttle would have even been built at all. It only seems to have been inserted into the alternate history timeline because it's a famous icon from the 80s in real life.

Maybe something like the Chrysler SERV could have been developed instead?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_SERV

MATTBLAK · « **Reply #501 on:** 04/20/2021 11:33 am »

Thank you - that's the sort of thing I meant.

Blackstar · « **Reply #502 on:** 04/20/2021 12:02 pm »

https://thespacereview.com/article/4161/1

Higher burning: The Air Launched Sortie Vehicle of the 1980s
by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, April 19, 2021

A recent episode of the AppleTV+ series “For All Mankind” featured a big reveal: an advanced space shuttle launched off the back of a C-5 Galaxy, headed for space on a military mission. It is a concept that has been around since the beginning of the shuttle program. In the early 1980s, the United States Air Force sponsored studies of what was initially designated a Space Sortie Vehicle, then renamed the Air Launched Sortie Vehicle, or ALSV. The ALSV would have launched into space off the back of a 747. In one early concept, the 747 would have been equipped with multiple rocket engines in its tail to boost it to launch altitude. Now, newly-acquired information indicates that Boeing conducted several studies of “Trans-Atmospheric Vehicles” in 1983, including a revised variant of the ALSV. This Sortie Vehicle, looking somewhat like a space shuttle orbiter that had been (lightly) stepped on by Godzilla, would have fired its own rocket engines while on top of the 747 and pushed both vehicles higher before separating the spacecraft to head into orbit.

The Air Launched Sortie Vehicle never progressed beyond the study phase, but it would have been a wild ride to space.

Blackstar · « **Reply #503 on:** 04/20/2021 02:46 pm »

http://www.warpedfactor.com/2021/02/for-all-mankind-season-1-review.html

sanman · « **Reply #504 on:** 04/21/2021 05:18 pm »

Ronald D Moore interviews for Season 2:

Lampyridae · « **Reply #505 on:** 04/22/2021 09:36 am »

I've only watched clips of the show, but in one there's a solar storm with levitating lunar dust. That actually seems to be plausible (if the parameters are just right), from the papers I've dug up they've clearly based it on findings from LADEE etc all the way back to Apollo descriptions and Surveyor pics of the horizon glow.

jgal · « **Reply #506 on:** 04/22/2021 01:40 pm »

Back to the idea of a rogue Russian attack on the base: When you go rogue in the Soviet Union, You end up in a gulag, or dead... So it should be very improbable if they want to be 'historically accurate'

libra · « **Reply #507 on:** 04/22/2021 05:56 pm »

Depends if they have Uncle Yuri Andropov tacit approval, or not. After all, the US Moon rangers shot first (and for all the wrong reasons).
Andropov was also former KGB chairman before replacing Brezhnev.

sanman · « **Reply #508 on:** 04/23/2021 04:59 pm »

Wow, some very gripping scenes in this finale.

[SPOILERS]
The climactic confrontation scene between Ed Baldwin and Sally Ride absolutely floored me. My mouth was literally agape. I had no idea they were going to take it to that level, and when they did it was shocking.

The 15 seconds of terror mad dash by Gordo & Tracey was also quite the nailbiter. I was expecting Tracey to make it even if Gordo didn't, but they went out together.

Aleida stumbling on some old terminal behind some boxes that was somehow channeling Gordo & Tracey seemed a bit contrived. Why wouldn't NASA's main communication arrays be picking up this signal for relay to main consoles?

I don't understand why the US military would need a second reactor at a moonbase to make nuclear weapons with.

Even just launching Apollo-Soyuz against the backdrop of superpower hostilities in space seems far-fetched.

And again the cardboard villain portrayal of the Soviets.

It seems like Margot is being targeted for some kind of espionage plot via Nikulov. Perhaps her tipoff about the Shuttle O-rings then advertised her as a useful target.

So the first humans to set foot on Mars arrive in 1995? That seems about 40 years ahead of real life. It should make the mid-1990s of the next season a very interesting period.
[/SPOILERS]

libra · « **Reply #509 on:** 04/23/2021 05:26 pm »

ugh just watched a bit of it on youtube, that was a little gruesome (you know what)

FutureSpaceTourist · « **Reply #510 on:** 04/23/2021 07:46 pm »

Spoilers in this review:

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-features/for-all-mankind-season-two-finale-recap-1155721/

Quote

FEATURES
APRIL 23, 2021 9:00AM ET
‘For All Mankind’ Season Two Finale Takes One Giant Leap
Seemingly meandering subplots are tied together with precision in an action-packed and moving conclusion
By ALAN SEPINWALL

sanman · « **Reply #511 on:** 04/23/2021 10:41 pm »

Spoilers in this Ronald Moore interview:

FutureSpaceTourist · « **Reply #512 on:** 04/24/2021 08:31 pm »

Ron Moore interview. Contains season 2 finale spoilers but is mainly about the big story arc concept for potential future series:

https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/ronald-d-moore-interview-for-all-mankind-season-2-finale-star-trek-battlestar

Quote

RYAN BRITT 4.23.2021 3:00 PM

”THERE IS A PLAN.”

THE INVERSE INTERVIEW
'FOR ALL MANKIND' SEASON 3 AND BEYOND: RON MOORE REVEALS HIS "7-YEAR ARC"

Oli · « **Reply #513 on:** 04/24/2021 10:10 pm »

Why doesn't Pathfinder have a giant fuel tank?

Quote from: FutureSpaceTourist on 04/24/2021 08:31 pm

Ron Moore interview.

I must say I would prefer a BSG-like show from Moore. I think the setting is too constraining in many ways.

Quote from: sanman on 04/23/2021 04:59 pm

Wow, some very gripping scenes in this finale.

[SPOILERS]
The Ed and Sally scene was a bit much for my taste, though she's not military, so I suppose it wasn't too farfetched.

The mad dash by Gordo & Tracey took A LOT longer than 15 seconds.

Yeah, the second reactor to make weapons-grade plutonium made zero sense to me either.
[/SPOILERS]

hektor · « **Reply #514 on:** 04/25/2021 10:50 am »

Someone Has to Die

Pipcard · « **Reply #515 on:** 04/25/2021 05:11 pm »

Thomas Paine was going to South Korea to talk about forming an "East Asian Space Alliance." I get that this is an excuse for the writers to put him on KAL 007, but Korea didn't have a space agency (KARI) until 1989 and no orbital rockets until 2009 (in our timeline). While NASDA already had rockets (based on licensed Deltas) and astronauts being trained in the 80s, but Japan's space program wasn't even mentioned. Maybe they will be part of the future Mars mission?

Zoltan · « **Reply #516 on:** 04/25/2021 06:23 pm »

Speaking of a particular EVA...

[SPOILERS]
While my generation grew up on Total Recall, I also know that the human body would not blow up or explode in vacuum at all. Therefore when that particular EVA was planned with all the details (apply pressure with all the duct tape and exhale to avoid lung damage), I kinda had the feeling they were about to survive.

Still, at the end we saw that they did not make it.

I'm thinking since then what could have been the cause of death here. They surely did not have a chance to do pure oxygen prebreathing, which could have lead to the bends and without immediate medical assistance could have been fatal.

There was also a reference to extreme heating, but that time and exposure was negligible IMHO (I can easily spend 10 minutes in a 100C hot sauna for example.)

Any educated guess?

[/SPOILERS]

sanman · « **Reply #517 on:** 04/26/2021 03:13 pm »

I'm wondering how they had access to an airlock, but there were no suits at that airlock. That should have been the case, even if this was an older airlock no longer being used. I'm not sure how they do it on ISS, or how many airlocks they have, but it seems to me that EVA suits or even just some kind of flight suit need to be near the airlocks. And perhaps shouldn't they be required to wear something like a flight suit at all times, in case there's some depressurization event due to micrometeorite strikes?

When we see footage from ISS, they're always in their comfortable pants/half-pants & short-sleeve shirts. Do they have anything they can quickly put on in case there's an emergency?

Skylon · « **Reply #518 on:** 04/26/2021 04:40 pm »

Quote from: sanman on 04/26/2021 03:13 pm

When we see footage from ISS, they're always in their comfortable pants/half-pants & short-sleeve shirts. Do they have anything they can quickly put on in case there's an emergency?

I am pretty sure the answer is "no."

A good example of what would happen in the event of a depressurization emergency was during the Mir-Progress collision. Michael Foale immediately made for the Soyuz expecting that the damage would be bad enough to necessitate an immediate evacuation. The Cosmonauts quickly determined that the breach was small and isolated to one module (Spektr), so seal off the module hatches and save the station was their action (which Foale joined in assisting).

Those are the most realistic options in the event of a depressurization on ISS I'd imagine and could be done more quickly then putting on a space suit. "Abandon ship" or try to isolate the breach.

Blackstar · « **Reply #519 on:** 04/26/2021 04:43 pm »

Quote from: Pipcard on 04/25/2021 05:11 pm

Thomas Paine was going to South Korea to talk about forming an "East Asian Space Alliance." I get that this is an excuse for the writers to put him on KAL 007, but Korea didn't have a space agency (KARI) until 1989 and no orbital rockets until 2009 (in our timeline). While NASDA already had rockets (based on licensed Deltas) and astronauts being trained in the 80s, but Japan's space program wasn't even mentioned. Maybe they will be part of the future Mars mission?

If you really want to get picky, the date for the actual KAL007 event doesn't match up to when that happened in the show.

But I think you're being overly picky about the above. As you note, he was going there to "talk" about an alliance. "Talk" could have included anything, including prompting South Korea to start a space program, maybe offering them the chance to fly some astronauts on US space shuttles. It's not a big stretch.