For All Mankind Trailer - Apple TV- SPOILER

Might have been interesting, but the thing that made it hard for me to buy was, very simply -- where was he getting his food and water?

 

Also worth remembering there was TWO of them in the pod. The other guy died on the landing.

Based on the dates in the show and the 'window' for launching to Mars the North Koreans would have launched in early September. The probe landed February 8th. So that's basically 5 months worth of food, water, and oxygen needed for 2 people. (Then 1 person surviving off it after landing)

Plus also worth noting that they didn't even discovered that North Korean astronaut until like September. So he survived a year off whatever supplies North Korea sent with them.

 

Yeah. Unless we learn he was, I don't know, sneaking into the others' base and stealing their food and water... It just strains credibility too much for a show that is otherwise so grounded in Realism/Naturalism.

 

Phone conversation between the US and NK presidents "There appears to have been a second crewman in your one-man pod."

 

The food isn't anywhere near as much of an issue as the water. Food can be made pretty dense and rations can be stretched very thin, but water is water.
Ignoring any kind of recycling system (because at that scale I think the system itself would take up as much volume and mass as the extra water it'd save), it would need to be something in the order of one to two hundred gallons of water for a year. However; you ever seen what a 200 gallon tank looks like? It's a 1x1m cylinder. Hefty, to be sure, but still small enough you could cram it (or a bunch of smaller vessels of equivalent volume) into something the size of that two module capsule.

 

Would they realistically be able to get to Mars carrying that kind of mass on that kind of rocket?

 

In space, no one can hear you complain about how heavy your shopping bags are.

 

I guess it depends if it was just a straight shot launch, or they had an EOR to take on the extra fuel and supplies for the trans-Mars injection burn. The former seems like an unlikely proposition, so it was probably the latter. There's also the possibility that it was an H2/O2 burning rocket, which essentially solves any water concerns since you can essentially just drink the fuel (after bleeding it through a water-electrolysis processor.)

Either way 200 gallons is nothing compared to how much fuel any ship would use for both major delta-v burns, so it's not a huge concern.

 

Just got Apple+ and binged all three seasons. What a ride! I love the show and its characters.

 

No. The scientific implausibility doubled every season. However, the continuing of the ridiculous "Mrs Robinson" plotline was the reason I lost interest in the show. Even if the spacecraft had obeyed the rocket equation, that element clumsily stolen from The Graduate would have driven me away. Too much weed being smoked in the writers' room, I suspect.

 

I just skip over the stuff I don’t like.

 

We know real-life astronauts do weird things because of obsession. Perhaps I expect too much of fictional ones.

Lisa Nowak - Wikipedia

 

It wasn't really a "Mrs. Robinson" arc in S3 with Danny, because he and Karen barely even interact that season. It's all about his irrational fixation, which is itself a long-term consequence of neglect from his parents. Same with Jimmy falling in with the anti-NASA reactionaries.

I don't mind the arcs with Danny and Jimmy. One theme For All Mankind has been playing with since Season One is this idea that pioneers and groundbreakers may be genuinely great people, but they are also often really bad partners and bad parents, and I'm fine with exploring the long-term consequences of how Gordo's and Tracey's selfishness and neglect harmed their children.

 

Finished the the third season yesterday. It’s weird that I won’t be seeing these characters for a while. It like going on summer vacation when I was in school. But I guess that’s a side effect of binging all three seasons over the last few weeks.

 

And that's what I don't understand. They were going to die if they did nothing. So if they hadn't tried, wouldn't they be selfish that way too? At least, by trying they had the slightest of chance of survival. So they did what they had to, to maybe see their kids again. I dunno. It's not worth fussing over. I'm just being impatient for the new season!

 

I mean, they were neglecting their children long before the 1983 Jamestown Crisis. It's like Molly talks about with Ed in Season One -- she spent her career away from her family, making her husband constantly fear for her safety, because she just could never be happy not being the person who goes out there. Same with Gordo and Tracey. It's selfish, but it's also heroic. These things are two sides of the same coin, but unfortunately it caused tremendous trauma to Danny and Jimmy -- trauma that they both subsequently chose to internalize and not seek treatment for. (Being traumatized, after all, does not mean you are not responsible for your own choices.)

 

Very fair points, all!

 

The saddest part is how Ed’s ‘Toxic Masculinity’ parenting was shown to not be *him* but society at the time and being basically pushed by *karen* and her hypocrisy the whole time. She’s basically the villain of the piece, but aside from the heavy heavy cringe, a fairly interestingly written one, whose flaws cause problems. Ed is probably the most tragic figure in the show, and once he’s gone, it’s going to be difficult to keep momentum. Aleida is about the only other consistent person to follow, maybe Margot.

 

I mean, yes and no? Things like that are always a combination of cultural conditioning and personal choice. Ed is a character who both made choices to embrace ideals of masculinity that were normative but toxic, but he's also a guy who worked to open his mind and overcome some of that toxicity. He hasn't entirely succeeded in that, but he's also not some kind of cartoon character.

Absolutely not. Ed is just as responsible for the toxic choices he's made as Karen. Neither of them are perfect people; both made choices that reflected toxic gender norms of their cultures, both inflicted abuse on others at times, but both also changed over time to transcend many of those toxicities. Karen is as much responsible as Ed for the Baldwins' decision to adopt and raise Kelly with a great deal more sensitivity and open communication than that with which they raised Shane, for instance. And she herself is a victim of emotional neglect from Ed. Which doesn't excuse her decision to sleep with Danny! But also she is not a villain and is no more responsible for enforcing toxic gender roles than Ed.

I think Aleida is going to drive the show for at least the next two seasons, yeah. I suspect Ellen will make a return to NASA too. And I think Kelly will also be a key driver of the emerging Space Aristocracy that we're starting to see develop.

 

Ron Moore did an interview awhile back (I can't remember if it was right before or right after the last season) that his vision for the show is seven seasons with Aleida as the central throoughline.