For All Mankind Trailer - Apple TV- SPOILER

[David cgc]

User mshaver76 on alternatehistory.net catalogued the events that happened between Season 1 and 2 from some mobile app Apple relased

The first batch of those is from "new clip" featurettes released by Apple between seasons, with one news story from each year during the time skip (and apparently done with next to zero budget, since there were two or thee points where the graphics and the dialog didn't match). The interface on the Mac App doesn't seem to have a simple, direct list of special features, but you can find them if you click through to the episode page for the season two premiere and scroll down. The header image for that page is also a fun time-lapse of Jamestown being expanded from the first little pod to the big complex in season two.

ETA: Oh, I almost forgot; in addition to ersatz Young Barbara Walters and a nondescript white guy, one of the news anchors seen during the segments is played by Enterprise's own Linda Park.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Molly wants to go back but knows she can't. Ed is punting Gordo's ass back to space but Gordo knows he shouldn't go back. All of that screamed out in that wide shot of the two of them smoking.

At least Dani is finally getting to go back to prove her worth, but I worry if she has to cover for Gordo again...or if he makes it worse for both of them.

Margo is my spiritual animal. Her working the vending machine to get her stuck sandwich free and then whooping with excitement when she got it freed is all me.

ETA: Oh, I almost forgot; in addition to ersatz Young Barbara Walters and a nondescript white guy, one of the news anchors seen during the segments is played by Enterprise's own Linda Park.

And she made her first proper appearance in this episode!

 

[David cgc]

Dramatic irony being what it is, it seems practically guarenteed to me that Ed is going to have to go back up with Gordo and Dani, since he's the one who's actually come out of this happy where he ended up; he got enough space of a lifetime during the months alone on Jamestown, and his family is stable and happy. Though Ed's falling back on bad, tough-love be-a-man BS with his deciding the cure for Gordo is to strap him back to a rocket and make him return to the place where he had a nervous breakdown while he's probably well-past hanging on by a thread. Also, important shots of the astro-kid from last week being irritated that the washed up old folks are getting missions ahead of him, now.

The NASA higher-up seems kind of dumb for assuming the Russians would be the ones to ruin the show's version of Apollo/Soyuz. Didn't he watch the Kitchen Debate? The Soviets loved publicity stunts.

I'm glad Karen and Wayne are officially best friends and haven't grown apart, and Molly and Ed are fine with it. Karen was my favorite character in the first season with her whole arc of being the perfect queen-bee housewife and gradually realizing that that was no longer the right place for her to channel all her energy and ambition and self-worth, so it'd be nice if she can sort of step back now that her arc has reached a place of fulfillment and enjoy her stability. Luckily, she didn't taunt Poseidon by looking directly towards the camera and honestly saying how happy she is with things, unlike Ed, so she's probably fine.

Molly lashing out at Wubbo for him deciding to go home and enjoy life now that he knows his days are numbered was interesting. She talked to Ed last season about how part of being willing to be an astronaut is the selfishness, and her attempts to hide that she got dosed from her husband, her crew, and herself is extremely selfish, even though she's not really getting away with it like she hoped.

Tracy's in an interesting place right now. Blowing off her job to enjoy her celebrity, but when she was talking to Ed, it was pretty clear that part of her living it up was about wanting a piece of the fame and adulation Gordo and the other astronauts had in the '60s.

Ellen and Larry have the sweetest, most adorable, healthiest sham marriage I've ever seen in fiction. Kind of a dick move for Margo to not realize her desk was short a chair. Oh, and I just realize, Larry's still dating, and it's the early-to-mid-eighties, so that makes me a little nervous.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Dramatic irony being what it is, it seems practically guarenteed to me that Ed is going to have to go back up with Gordo and Dani, since he's the one who's actually come out of this happy where he ended up; he got enough space of a lifetime during the months alone on Jamestown, and his family is stable and happy. Though Ed's falling back on bad, tough-love be-a-man BS with his deciding the cure for Gordo is to strap him back to a rocket and make him return to the place where he had a nervous breakdown while he's probably well-past hanging on by a thread. Also, important shots of the astro-kid from last week being irritated that the washed up old folks are getting missions ahead of him, now.

Yuuuup. That's all going to explode in Ed's face later on. It seems inevitable.

The NASA higher-up seems kind of dumb for assuming the Russians would be the ones to ruin the show's version of Apollo/Soyuz. Didn't he watch the Kitchen Debate? The Soviets loved publicity stunts.

Indeed but he has always seemed kind of clueless on such matters. The problem is he's that kind of bureaucrat who thinks he's a lot smarter than he actually he is.

I'm glad Karen and Wayne are officially best friends and haven't grown apart, and Molly and Ed are fine with it.

Yes! I loved this as well. I wasn't a fan of Karen last season (but I understand why you like her) but I really enjoyed her relationship with Wayne. I'm glad it's on firmer ground now and their respective spouses aren't bothered by it.

Molly lashing out at Wubbo for him deciding to go home and enjoy life now that he knows his days are numbered was interesting. She talked to Ed last season about how part of being willing to be an astronaut is the selfishness, and her attempts to hide that she got dosed from her husband, her crew, and herself is extremely selfish, even though she's not really getting away with it like she hoped.

That stood out to me as well. Plus, she's probably feeling bitter about Wubbo quitting despite the sacrifice she made for him and she can't say anything about it.

Ellen and Larry have the sweetest, most adorable, healthiest sham marriage I've ever seen in fiction. Kind of a dick move for Margo to not realize her desk was short a chair. Oh, and I just realize, Larry's still dating, and it's the early-to-mid-eighties, so that makes me a little nervous.

Ellen and Larry are soooo adorable. I loved their breakfast scene and I hope for more of that. I do wonder if there will be more spotlight on their respective sexualities considering it's the 80s...

 

[David cgc]

Should've held off on the post, I've been listening to The Incomparable's For All Mankind recap/review podcast the morning, which helped remind me of the comments in my earlier post, and continuing on with it, I was reminded of how it made me laugh that when Dani flipped to a random passage in her Bible for advice, she landed on the Fig Tree Story, one of Jesus's more mean-spirited and opaque miracles. Which was doubly weird, because it was the second time yesterday I'd seen the Fig Tree Story mentioned, and it's not really one of the greatest hits from the Bible that people bring up in day-to-day life.

 

[FreezeC77]

Dramatic irony being what it is, it seems practically guarenteed to me that Ed is going to have to go back up with Gordo and Dani, since he's the one who's actually come out of this happy where he ended up; he got enough space of a lifetime during the months alone on Jamestown, and his family is stable and happy. Though Ed's falling back on bad, tough-love be-a-man BS with his deciding the cure for Gordo is to strap him back to a rocket and make him return to the place where he had a nervous breakdown while he's probably well-past hanging on by a thread. Also, important shots of the astro-kid from last week being irritated that the washed up old folks are getting missions ahead of him, now.

Ellen and Larry have the sweetest, most adorable, healthiest sham marriage I've ever seen in fiction. Kind of a dick move for Margo to not realize her desk was short a chair. Oh, and I just realize, Larry's still dating, and it's the early-to-mid-eighties, so that makes me a little nervous.

I' m wondering how things are going to play out with that younger astronaut who's pissed about being passed over. He didn't look happy seeing two old-guards coming back who haven't really been 'active/training' for nearly a decade. I wonder if we could be seeing a NASA WHISTLEBLOWER type thing in the future where he spills things and we see Ed testifying at an Iran-Contra type thing before Congress.

As to Larry. I'm worried considering the time period that he could be headed to an HIV/AIDS fate.

 

[David cgc]

I was doing some reading on the Space Shuttle, and looking at the Wikipedia page on the Spacelab module, I saw that Wubbo Ockels was a real astronaut. There needs to be a cheat sheet or something with this show (not unlike the little postscript the between-seasons news clips had, talking about how they related to what actually happened).

In a slightly more baroque instance in this past episode, the show's technical advisor, retired astronaut Garrett Reisman, cameoed as the commander of the Columbia in the scene where Molly and Wubbo were getting settled in for the trip back to Earth, playing a character also called Garrett Reisman, who is not, however, the historical NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman, because the real Garrett Reisman was fifteen in 1983.

 

[Tuskin38]

So maybe I'm just blind, but Linda Park has been credited at the end of both episodes so far, but I don't remember seeing her at all.

 

[John Clark]

So maybe I'm just blind, but Linda Park has been credited at the end of both episodes so far, but I don't remember seeing her at all.

She was one of the news presenters on tv in the second episode.. Think I missed her in the first though.

 

[Tuskin38]

She was one of the news presenters on tv in the second episode.. Think I missed her in the first though.

She's also in at least one of the bonus videos covering alternate history events the Lennon one. I just turned that one on as I read your post haha.

One of the other news anchors, who was also in Season 1, is played by Spencer Garrett, who played Simon Tarses in TNG.

 

[1987SpaceGuy]

It's refreshing to see the "right stuff" Astronaut people having issues with their compass, purpose.
Glad some of them can do something about it!

Molly probably started to regret saving the dutch injured astronaut, since he leaves on his own (understandable decision, but nobody knows that it also due to a heavy cost from Molly)

the PBJ science hack was funny. Wonder why she didn't reconnect with the now grown up latino girl from the former NASA cleaning staff. She's brilliant, but not a good people's person.

Bummer to come back from Space, wanting to push for Mars, then getting bogged down by bureaucracy and politics.

 

[FPAlpha]

I' m wondering how things are going to play out with that younger astronaut who's pissed about being passed over. He didn't look happy seeing two old-guards coming back who haven't really been 'active/training' for nearly a decade. I wonder if we could be seeing a NASA WHISTLEBLOWER type thing in the future where he spills things and we see Ed testifying at an Iran-Contra type thing before Congress.

As to Larry. I'm worried considering the time period that he could be headed to an HIV/AIDS fate.

Yeah, that young astronaut will become a problem. Either he quits because he's not advancing despite being qualified ( which is a failure of leadership, in this case Ed) which would make for a boring storyline of he's going to be some other kind of trouble. This being the Cold War intelligence services are just looking for dissatisfied people to turn to their cause or it'll go another way.

I have to say Ed is making some really poor management choices here - promoting inactive astronauts from the first generation and immediately putting them onto a mission ( and with Gordo's sizeable gut, which means he's physically not fit and not even mentioning his mental state) will blow up big time, it's a disaster in the making.

Margo as always is hilarious - i was in stitches at the Margo vs. Vending Machine scene

As always i love the shots in the show - that pullback from the Space Shuttle on its way back to Earth was just gorgeous.

 

[Tuskin38]

Huh Mike and Denise Okuda are technical consultants on the show.

 

[Push The Button]

the PBJ science hack was funny. Wonder why she didn't reconnect with the now grown up latino girl from the former NASA cleaning staff. She's brilliant, but not a good people's person.

I think Margo is disappointed that she had spent time mentoring Aleida, seemingly for nothing, and had probably just written her off. Margo obviously puts her career first and doesn’t have time to deal with other people in her life, other than profesionally.

 

[somebuddyX]

I loved the setup of Ed practicing golf in his office was because he was so shit on the course.
Wanted a little more of Columbia in flight or something. Hopefully we see more space shuttle action. I don't know the feasibility of seeing two together but I think that would be neat.
Aleida got a mention and stunned Margot.
I wonder if Gordo is going to sabotage himself by revealing what actually happened on the moon to either get out of going back or to protect Dani. I feel like someone's going to criticise her in front of him and he's going to arc up.
I liked Tracy confronting Ed about Gordo sleeping around on her back in the day and the it was nice that Gordo really was happy for her.
This show makes me want to go find that Spaceflight Chronology book about that alternate history of Star Trek, especially the early part when they're flying DY-100s around Earth or whatever.
This episode went by so quick!

 

[Reverend]

Am I missing something, but isn't the STS a low orbit only design? Like, by the time it gets into orbit it has enough fuel to deorbit again and not much else. Given the diminishing returns of the thrust to weight ratio, I doubt even if they sacrificed the entire payload bay with an extra fuel tank they'd have enough reactant mass for a lunar injection burn, luna deorbit and landing, take-off, and the other burns necessary to get back to earth and deorbit somewhere sensible. And even if that was feasible; all of that just for a crew transfer since without the payload bay, it's not taking any cargo worth mentioning.

And how the hell is is supposed to land on the moon anyway? On an earth landing it's basically a glider and has to deploy chutes to slow down before it runs out of runway (which is four and a half km long to give you an idea how much stopping distance this thing needs.) Needless to say the airfoil and chutes do precisely feckall in a vacuum but add extra useless mass to the equation, and it's not designed to land nose up so they'd have to take it in tail first, on an even longer runway...in 0.166g and hope the undercarriage's shock absorbers don't bounce them right back up into orbit...

Really speaking they should only be using the shuttle to get up to Skylab and back, with something like an Apollo upper stage ferrying personnel and materials from Earth orbit to luna orbit.

 

[David cgc]

IIRC, there were very early proposals that the shuttle would be able to travel to the moon. And getting to the moon isn't as much of an issue as getting back; they could just ("just") use a different launch-stack for lunar missions as opposed to orbital ones, similar to how the SLS is intended to be modular for different missions, or using a Saturn V versus a Saturn IB. It's also possible the FAM shuttle is only superficially similar to the real one.

I don't think the shuttle lands on the moon, though. Just before they left Jamestown, the new commander mentioned they would be going up on an LSAM, which was the reusable version of the lunar lander they were using to go back and forth from the command module last season.

As for using the shuttle at all for moon missions, the best I could think of is that it gives more cargo capacity for material being returned to Earth, since Apollo and Sea Dragon flights would be one-way, though it's hard for me to imagine what could be valuable enough to be worth shipping back to Earth from the moon. It's also possible they're using it as a platform for scientific or military experiments on the far side of the moon, shielded from radio pollution from Earth.

 

[Reverend]

I still can't see the OMS having the capability to make Luna orbit. They're simply not designed for it, nor do they have the fuel capacity and it's not like the shuttle could one-way it and refill the NTO & Hydrazine tanks before the return trip; what H2O they could mine at the poles is going to be needed more for local uses, and it's not like nitrogen is exactly in abundance either. If they're making fuel up there at all it should be reserved for the LSAMs, and to build up a stockpile for the Mars program.

Speaking of the the LSAMs; while seem like a logical choice for personnel transfer, how would cargo transfers be handled? You'd need a heavy lifter, burning even more fuel to deorbit large modules. Makes way more sense for those to be part and parcel of the Sea Dragon launches. Which again brings us back to: why use the shuttle for this at all?
The Shuttle is what it is (a deeply compromised design) precisely because NASA was forced to abandon further Luna flights and to accommodate the USAF that wanted the ability to deploy and potentially repair heavier satellites. In a world where the USAF has it's own shuttle program and NASA has an active presence on the moon, the STS shouldn't even exist, at least not in that form.

Honestly, I think the show it just doing it for the look of the thing.

 

[Push The Button]

Yes, this is very close to the limit of plausibility, if not a little past it, at least with the real world version of the Shuttle. There hopefully will be some in-universe explanation of how FAM’s shuttles can manage it. But hey, we’re Star Trek fans, we are used to suspending our disbelief when it comes to engineering and physics.

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[David cgc]

But hey, we’re Star Trek fans, we are used to suspending our disbelief when it comes to engineering and physics.

Fingers crossed for the For All Mankind technical manual in a few years, with copious cutaway drawings and orthographic diagrams.