For All Mankind (AH Tv series at Apple TV)
- Thread starter Michel Van
- Start date
Well the contract for Skylab was awarded in August of 1969. And it launched May 1973.
Jamestown landed in October of 1973. And the news of the Soviet plans for a moon happened just before Apollo 12 which launched in November of 1969.
Plus it is a considerably smaller spacecraft than Skylab. Looks like they lopped off the bottom half of SIVB H2 tank and left off the O2 tank. Some of the complexity got added back on but still if they could do Skylab from Aug of 69 to May of 73 it plausible why they could do Jamestown in similar time period.
True, but that's just a dry workshop, with the Apollo Telescope Mount (already far along in development) tacked on. That really wasn't *that* hard to throw together. It didn't have to land on anything, it wasn't designed for frequent EVA's. It just had to float in low earth orbit.
Here, you are developing a lunar base hab from scratch. Yes, it seems the engines are derived from the Apollo LM descent stage, but otherwise... Plus, it has to be landed through automated control, too.
The NASA study, as I recall, posited a 7 year development period, and a cost of $1.45 billion (which I strongly suspect would have been exceeded).
Well, maybe it is a nitpick for what is just a TV series. I think in real life, that simply could not have been achievable on that schedule.
To be fair there are a few moments like that in the show but I suppose for storytelling we have to live with them, still the show is much better than I feared it would be.
I do think they're making a decent effort to show some historical authenticity, at least in hardware and background details.
The ERA getting up and Ted Kennedy as President are interesting butterflies, i hope we see some cool repercussions of both and further divergence from OTL.
Episode 6 commentary:
Well that's shocking. Oof, that's a rough landing.
Now back to our regularly-scheduled tech-nerding. What kind of lander would Titan III be able to put on the Moon?
That's...a fairly good point from the controller. Counterpoint, though--plenty of people get killed in more mundane industrial accidents and never even get so much as being "the other 11 guys."
Zvezda--look forward to seeing that base. Kennedy is using the pardon as a carrot to keep Nixon quiet.
I really hope Tracy's videophone link to Gordo is encrypted, because he's making himself look like a colossal douchebag. Some KGB agent is probably getting a kick out of intercepting that.
Fucking FBI.
Praising Walt Disney might not be Werner's smartest approach for deflecting allegations of Hitlerism.
Hey, Tracy hung up the panther painting. That's nice.
Von Braun's religiosity--now that's a hot potato. Can't say I like this family drama stuff between Wernher and a Manhattan Project physicist. Seems kind of forced, a way for Wernher to reconcile with Margot by authorial fiat. IMO, this resuscitation of the Von Braun subplot is a bit hamfisted--I wonder how to do it better.
The look into Ellen's psychology is interesting. Living a double life can do that.
Guilting! Now that's more like Wernher von Braun! Oh, and a sneering reference to Irene--now that's a burn. He's going full Immigrant Dad on her ass! But I gotta sympathize with Margot--gotta love a meritocrat. Now Wernher's going on fault-tree analysis and giving congressional pork-spreading both barrels--that's the von Braun we know and admire. And now he's proposing that Margot go whistle-blowing--that is Machiavellian. And she follows up with blackmail!
The family tension between the Baldwin and Stevens families, with Tracy having to ride herd on two sets of kids, and the fathers unable to do much to intervene, is actually interesting.
Not sure NASA would ever allow solo long-distance moonwalks, but that probably got approved ad-hoc after an emergency maintenance session. I look forward to seeing American and Soviet cosmonauts meet next episode, since they seemed to imply that at the end.
Well that's shocking. Oof, that's a rough landing.
Now back to our regularly-scheduled tech-nerding. What kind of lander would Titan III be able to put on the Moon?
That's...a fairly good point from the controller. Counterpoint, though--plenty of people get killed in more mundane industrial accidents and never even get so much as being "the other 11 guys."
Zvezda--look forward to seeing that base. Kennedy is using the pardon as a carrot to keep Nixon quiet.
I really hope Tracy's videophone link to Gordo is encrypted, because he's making himself look like a colossal douchebag. Some KGB agent is probably getting a kick out of intercepting that.
Fucking FBI.
Praising Walt Disney might not be Werner's smartest approach for deflecting allegations of Hitlerism.
Hey, Tracy hung up the panther painting. That's nice.
Von Braun's religiosity--now that's a hot potato. Can't say I like this family drama stuff between Wernher and a Manhattan Project physicist. Seems kind of forced, a way for Wernher to reconcile with Margot by authorial fiat. IMO, this resuscitation of the Von Braun subplot is a bit hamfisted--I wonder how to do it better.
The look into Ellen's psychology is interesting. Living a double life can do that.
Guilting! Now that's more like Wernher von Braun! Oh, and a sneering reference to Irene--now that's a burn. He's going full Immigrant Dad on her ass! But I gotta sympathize with Margot--gotta love a meritocrat. Now Wernher's going on fault-tree analysis and giving congressional pork-spreading both barrels--that's the von Braun we know and admire. And now he's proposing that Margot go whistle-blowing--that is Machiavellian. And she follows up with blackmail!
The family tension between the Baldwin and Stevens families, with Tracy having to ride herd on two sets of kids, and the fathers unable to do much to intervene, is actually interesting.
Not sure NASA would ever allow solo long-distance moonwalks, but that probably got approved ad-hoc after an emergency maintenance session. I look forward to seeing American and Soviet cosmonauts meet next episode, since they seemed to imply that at the end.
I said this on another forum but did it bother anybody else when Ellen told her fake boyfriend "we should get out stories straight - where was our first date?"
That just...urgh. They're both not only two gay people acting as each other's beards living in the seventies with everything to lose if they're exposed, but they're also a NASA astronaut and scientist both taught to have redundancies upon redundancies AND clearly good friends AND both very paranoid.
You're telling me that in three years, these two people never sat down and got these details straight already - especially the first date? It really felt like it was a line for the audience and inorganic.
It's a small matter but still.
That just...urgh. They're both not only two gay people acting as each other's beards living in the seventies with everything to lose if they're exposed, but they're also a NASA astronaut and scientist both taught to have redundancies upon redundancies AND clearly good friends AND both very paranoid.
You're telling me that in three years, these two people never sat down and got these details straight already - especially the first date? It really felt like it was a line for the audience and inorganic.
It's a small matter but still.
What was the red light that Gordo saw at the end? I thought Gordo going for a walk was going to lead to him being revealed as the Russian plant and visiting Svezda.
Was the red light telling him NOT to come in yet? Could apartment hunting be a metaphor for looking at switching sides?
Also, non American here, but does an amendment to the constitution only need 3/4 of states to support it? As llinois was the 38th to ratify the ERA?
Was the red light telling him NOT to come in yet? Could apartment hunting be a metaphor for looking at switching sides?
Also, non American here, but does an amendment to the constitution only need 3/4 of states to support it? As llinois was the 38th to ratify the ERA?
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I don't think so. The series is too American centered to have an American astronaut defect to the USSR. It may work the other way around, but it feel too cheese. I think the Soviet-American encounter won't be authorized by either space agency, though - gotta protect the secrets of their so-called military bases after all.
I think the red lights are Zvezda’s Landing lights, signals to assist incoming spacecraft in landing. Gordo was surprised to see it because he thought he was the first to see that particular part of the Moon, but now realizes the Russians were there too.
I’m a bit confused by the mission numbers and crew assignments, where there seem to be some continuity discrepancies, and a lack of logic, compared with what occurred in OTL.
Apollo 11 was the first US lunar landing, followed by Apollo 12, which coincided with the female cosmonaut landing on the Moon. Both these flew in 1969.
The plot then jumps to Apollo 15, with Cobb onboard, in 1971. So we assume that 13 and 14 were successful lunar landings in 1970/1.
In episode 5, Poole is assigned to Apollo 18, with Gordo Stevens, and Tracy Stevens to Apollo 25, which must have been several years ahead, at that time (1971). There is no mention of Waverly, except that she was back-up to Cobb, on Apollo 15.
We then fast forward two years, to Shackleton base, which is occupied by Baldwin, G Stevens and Poole, on Apollo 21. Would Stevens and Poole really have flown to the Moon twice, on 18 and 21? Seems improbable, when, for example, Collins doesn’t fly between 11 and 23. And, where is Apollo 22? The crew of 21 were waiting to be relieved by Apollo 23. What happened to 22?
Finally, after the Apollo 23 incident, the crew of Apollo 24 is assigned. Rather improbably, Waverly, who seems to be a rookie, is named as commander, and Slayton adds himself to the crew, causing some surprise. In OTL, Slayton had a pretty robust and recognisable system of preparing crews in support, back-up and finally, prime crew roles. It wasn’t a random, shoot from the hip, process. Thoughts?
Apollo 11 was the first US lunar landing, followed by Apollo 12, which coincided with the female cosmonaut landing on the Moon. Both these flew in 1969.
The plot then jumps to Apollo 15, with Cobb onboard, in 1971. So we assume that 13 and 14 were successful lunar landings in 1970/1.
In episode 5, Poole is assigned to Apollo 18, with Gordo Stevens, and Tracy Stevens to Apollo 25, which must have been several years ahead, at that time (1971). There is no mention of Waverly, except that she was back-up to Cobb, on Apollo 15.
We then fast forward two years, to Shackleton base, which is occupied by Baldwin, G Stevens and Poole, on Apollo 21. Would Stevens and Poole really have flown to the Moon twice, on 18 and 21? Seems improbable, when, for example, Collins doesn’t fly between 11 and 23. And, where is Apollo 22? The crew of 21 were waiting to be relieved by Apollo 23. What happened to 22?
Finally, after the Apollo 23 incident, the crew of Apollo 24 is assigned. Rather improbably, Waverly, who seems to be a rookie, is named as commander, and Slayton adds himself to the crew, causing some surprise. In OTL, Slayton had a pretty robust and recognisable system of preparing crews in support, back-up and finally, prime crew roles. It wasn’t a random, shoot from the hip, process. Thoughts?
Political pressures could be forcing Slayton to advance some rookies. Collins’ CMP was an Asian man (Harrison Wu? Or was it Yu?) we’ve never seen before. That could be disrupting the normal process of crew rotation.
The other thing is that not every mission is bound for the Moon. Apollo 25 was mentioned to be a satellite servicing mission, so presumably there are still Saturn IB Apollo missions firing off to LEO. Maybe not a full Skylab, but month-long Earth orbit missions with a LM Lab? That could account for a few of the other missions like 22. Would also account for a bit of extra flight experience for, for example, Waverly.
Or the numbers might apply to unmanned launches. 4, 5, and 6 got numbers, after all—so why not the launch of the Jamestown core module? Unmanned LM Truck supply flights could also get numbered.
The other thing is that not every mission is bound for the Moon. Apollo 25 was mentioned to be a satellite servicing mission, so presumably there are still Saturn IB Apollo missions firing off to LEO. Maybe not a full Skylab, but month-long Earth orbit missions with a LM Lab? That could account for a few of the other missions like 22. Would also account for a bit of extra flight experience for, for example, Waverly.
Or the numbers might apply to unmanned launches. 4, 5, and 6 got numbers, after all—so why not the launch of the Jamestown core module? Unmanned LM Truck supply flights could also get numbered.
It's also entirely possible that the Post 15 mission profiles were adjusted once the site for Jamestown was found.
The timeline as I understand it ...
The timeline as I understand it ...
1969 - Apollo 11 (Armstrong, Collins, Aldrin), first American on the moon, Apollo 12 said to be coming up, but schedule said to need accelerating
1970 - Apollo 13 & 14, possible scouting missions for sites for Jamestown
1971 - Apollo 15 (Baldwin, Cobb, Sedgewick), first American woman on the moon, Jamestown site scouted
16 / 17
Apollo 18 (Gordo, Poole) cited as a Moon landing.
19 / 20
1973 - Jamestown Base established, Apollo 21 crew first to use it
1974 - Apollo 22 (Baldwin, Poole, Gordo) crew replace Apollo 21 crew Apollo 23 (Collins) Disaster, Apollo 24 mission profile changed to echo A23, Apollo 25 (inc. Tracey) previously cited as satellite repair
1970 - Apollo 13 & 14, possible scouting missions for sites for Jamestown
1971 - Apollo 15 (Baldwin, Cobb, Sedgewick), first American woman on the moon, Jamestown site scouted
16 / 17
Apollo 18 (Gordo, Poole) cited as a Moon landing.
19 / 20
1973 - Jamestown Base established, Apollo 21 crew first to use it
1974 - Apollo 22 (Baldwin, Poole, Gordo) crew replace Apollo 21 crew Apollo 23 (Collins) Disaster, Apollo 24 mission profile changed to echo A23, Apollo 25 (inc. Tracey) previously cited as satellite repair
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Apollo 22 could have been a mission to somewhere else on the moon. Maybe checking for ice at the North pole?
I'd kill for a source book that details all the stuff not shown in the episodes.
I'd kill for a source book that details all the stuff not shown in the episodes.
Yes. Also if you don't know, it is a real act, that has yet to be ratified IRL.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment
Apollo 21 was cites as the first crew to inhabit Jamestown last week, but that was 12th October 73, and the Apollo 23 Disaster was dated as 24th August 1974. It seems a little long to have Baldwin, Poole and Gordo up there, and then to drag it into potentially early 1975 for their return would make the mission near a year long. I don't recall any specific points saying either, though.
SpaceOrbisGaming
Banned
Wasn't that killed off after the first episode? If I recall it was if the Nazis won world war 2. Happy to see that Althistory is getting a second go-around hopefully this does well so we can get more like it.