For All Mankind (AH Tv series at Apple TV)

Wait for the last episode first in case Trek is mentioned?

I just watched it, I don’t think it is. With that being said, any thoughts on that episode? It was certainly... interesting... to say the least. I personally liked it, but I’m not sure how accurate that Apollo 24/25 scene was.
 
So a bunch of stuff happens. The most notable things is the mishap on Apollo 24/25 (btw we finally have answers as to what the image was about), and Ed killing the Soviet cosmonaut.

Turns out, Apollo 24 had a malfunction in the Saturn Instrument Unit, and couldn’t perform TLI (just to be clear, the stuff people came up with earlier about the spacecraft being in MEO wasn’t true, it was just artistic licence), so they sent Apollo 25 which was about to launch on a satellite service mission anyway up to replace the unit. They do so, and perform a self check on the TLI program.

Turns out, the computer program hadn’t reset or something, and the S-IVB decides to actually do the TLI burn. Apollo 24 (CSM+S-IVB) and Apollo 25 (just the CSM) were tethered together, and as far as I can tell, 3 astronauts were on EVA at the time. Molly (Apollo 25 crew) was just crawling out the hatch on the side of the instrument ring, and wasn’t tethered to anything. A guy named Harrison (Apollo 24 crew) was tethered to Apollo 24 and free-flying when it lit. He was flung off the back, got pulled downwards by his tether, and was vaporised by the J-2s exhaust. Another dude I don’t remember the name of (Apollo 24 crew) was climbing into the hatch of the Apollo 24 CM when it lit, and by the end of the scene he’s back inside, presumably having climbed inside during the burn.

When the burn starts, the Apollo 25 CSM is flung against the side of the Apollo 24 S-IVB, and damages a thruster quad. About 10 seconds after the burn starts, Molly cuts the line connecting Apollo 24 to Apollo 25. A few seconds later, her grip fails her and she falls of the side, flying “100 yards away from Apollo 25 and increasing” both Apollo 25 and Molly have been dragged into an elliptical orbit by Apollo 24, which Houston had lost contact with. Apollo 25 successfully rescues Molly, and radar data on 24 shows it will “miss the Moon by a thousand miles”.

Later in the episode, at Jamestown base, a Soviet cosmonaut (it is unclear if he is the only cosmonaut on the Moon at that time) runs low on air going back to Zvezda, and stops at Jamestown for a refill. Ed lets him into the airlock, but depressurises it once he’s taken off his spacesuit. While this probably won’t cause WWIII, I’m pretty sure Soviet-American relations for the near future are completely screwed. Unless Ed can cover it up, he’s basically gone insane at this point, and isn’t talking to Earth anymore.

So yeah, great episode, and this is probably about to get very interesting.
 

mspence

Banned
Haven't watched this week's episode yet as am blasting through Season 4 of The Expanse, but pondering more Enterprise II ...

Perhaps there would be a Romulan crewman (Science Officer, and put Commander Decker at Navigation?), responsible for some of the tech that is incorporated into the Enterprise II? If Hammill is Marcus, then perhaps Hamlin could be the Romulan?

Alternately cut Scotty from the cast and make Decker the Science Officer and First Officer, Adams as CMO, the Romulan as Chief Engineer with a second female alien at Navigation - with Uhura, Sulu and Kirk returning.

Also how scheduling might run ...

10th September : Episode 1
17th September : Episode 2
24th September : Episode 3
1st October : Episode 4

8th October : No New Episode due to rolling coverage of the delivery of Jamestown Base to the moon by Apollo 20 scheduled for the 12th

15th October : Episode 5
22nd October : Episode 6
29th October : Episode 7

Speaking of, should I create it's own thread?

I'd like to see a stand-alone thread for Phase II being developed instead of Battlestar Galactica in the late Seventies. My own idea would be to have Will Decker as the new Captain of the Enterprise along with the characters created for the series as the main crew-Xon, Illia, etc. Some of the secondary characters from the original series-Chief Kyle, now chief engineer, and Janice Rand (if they could Grace Lee Whitney to return at this point) as a transporter chief or helmsman, could guest star in expanded roles. Kirk and Spock would be occasional recurring characters now representing Starfleet authority, with Kirk now an admiral and Spock being an ambassador. The others would not appear except perhaps in special guest star roles.

More here:
https://lostmediawiki.com/Star_Trek...from_unproduced_television_series;_1977-1978)
 
Episode 9:

Minor technical hiccup--Deke Slayton calls it a 'sunrise' when the sun is clearly 'rising' in the west. Unless the Earth started rotating backwards or Apollo 24 was launched retrograde for some reason, that would not happen.

Hey, Molly's back! I'm impressed that missions are still more seat-of-the-pants than they were--to organize an emergency rescue mission on such short notice!

"Orbital observatory"--seems there's an early Hubble. And Apollo 25 is slated to fly on a Saturn IB--good to see that that rocket's not forgotten.

Immigrant father--giving us that dose of guilt that pushes us forward! I like him--he reminds me of my family.

Neat little effect when Ed's building that monument to his son on the Moon--the rocks (certainly made of foam) seem lightweight.

Fucking hell, what's the FBI guy bothering the janitor for? And now he's getting into second-shooter territory.

Technical note--the S-IVB must have received some long-life upgrades, to have retained LH2 for the few days for Apollo 25 to launch.

Just to be clear here, the Soviets violate the Outer Space Treaty. They used hardware launched by the US (and under US jurisdiction) without permission. And then the cosmonaut pulls a weapon on Ed first.

[me, watching Apollo 24's progress on the orbital map] Oh, don't tell me...don't you idiots have a master abort switch? RIP Harrison--plunging into the exhaust of a J-2 engine is not fun. Also, I highly doubt that a cable designed to support one astronaut is going to take the weight of a 20-tonne CSM. And surely there should have been an automatic abort from something so off-nominal as hauling a second CSM on a rope?

Oh-kay, Ed's gone off the deep end and committed a war crime. Since this was not connected to the earlier incident, nothing I said about the treaty violation justifies cold-blooded homicide.
 
Yeah, was not sure what I thought about Ed's actions there at the end. As the hapless cosmonaut got in the airlock I thought that it might happen, but kept telling myself that surely Ed wouldn't do that...right? RIGHT? And then...nope. He did it. Not sure what they will do from there.

And talk about a roller coaster with what happened with Apollo 24 and 25.

On another note, looks like President Kennedy might be headed for a one-term presidency, and being ousted by his own party no less!
 
Do we know that "Ivan" is definitely dead or is there still room for Crazy Ed to turn the oxygen back on and save him, and thus averting WW3?
 
Do we know that "Ivan" is definitely dead or is there still room for Crazy Ed to turn the oxygen back on and save him, and thus averting WW3?

I dought it would cause WWIII. Ed hadn't been in contact with Earth, so the US could claim that he acted independently. That's assuming Ed doesn't cover it up, as fortyseven suggested. Even if the US doesn't deny its involvement, the death of one man seems like too small of an event to go to nuclear war over.
 
I dought it would cause WWIII. Ed hadn't been in contact with Earth, so the US could claim that he acted independently. That's assuming Ed doesn't cover it up, as fortyseven suggested. Even if the US doesn't deny its involvement, the death of one man seems like too small of an event to go to nuclear war over.
Yes, it's a criminal case with political bickering between the USA and the USSR regarding who's judging Ed. Legally, the USA should have jurisdiction, but everyone would know the USA would be lenient towards him. On the other hand, with no American relief in sight, the USSR can seize the opportunity to dismantle the American base in the Moon, take Ed to the USSR and use him as a political bargaining chip.
However, I don't think the show mirrors international politics that well. Yes, this is the height of the Cold War, but there is too much animosity between Soviets and Americans. And, as someone said, in this series the USSR is just there as a foil
 
Do we know that "Ivan" is definitely dead or is there still room for Crazy Ed to turn the oxygen back on and save him, and thus averting WW3?

I am *hoping* this is where they are going.
They definitely leave things hanging there without for sure showing that "Ivan" is dead, but something tells me he probably is. That said, as others have pointed out, Ed could potentially cover things up, or even if he doesn't I agree with most here that this would be a big incident but not WWIII worthy.
 
[me, watching Apollo 24's progress on the orbital map] Oh, don't tell me...don't you idiots have a master abort switch? RIP Harrison--plunging into the exhaust of a J-2 engine is not fun. Also, I highly doubt that a cable designed to support one astronaut is going to take the weight of a 20-tonne CSM. And surely there should have been an automatic abort from something so off-nominal as hauling a second CSM on a rope?

A J-2S engine produces 1138 Kn, or 114 tons, of thrust. A CSM weighs 28.8 tons, and the super-LEM probably weighs around 37 tons, assuming a dry mass of 16 tons and hydra-lox engines. The Lunar Module Adapter weighs 1.8 tons. The S-IVB itself has a dry mass of 13.5 tons so doing the math, assuming the use of a J-2S, even with a 37 ton LEM it will have 3200 m/s of delta-v. With F-1As and J-2Ss on the Saturn V, that's enough. Anyways, in total the Apollo stack in orbit weighs 185.1 tons. Towing another CSM behind them, that brings it to 213.1 tons. With 114 tons of thrust, that's a TWR of 0.535. That means that that cable only has to pull 14.4 tons, which is still a stretch, but not totally unbelievable.

The more hard-to-believe thing is the startup sequence. According to my Saturn V flight manual,

Prior to second burn, the systems are again readied for an engine start. Approximately 4 minutes before restart, the chilldown systems are reactivated to condition the lines by removing gases collected in the propellant supply system. The O2/H2 burner is started approximately 9 minutes prior to second burn to pressurize the propellant tanks ullage space and to provide thrust to settle the propellents.

LH2 continuous venting is terminated immediately after the O2/H2 burner start. Approximately one minute before engine start, the APS ullage engines are fired and the O2/H2 burner is shut down. The recirculation system is deactivated and engine restart is initiated. With this, the APS ullage engines are shut off, and the APS yaw and pitch control modes are deenergised. The roll control mode remains active throughout the second burn.

So, normally the crew would have had 9 minutes of warning, or at least 4 if they weren't paying attention to the O2/H2 burner. Even if those didn't start for whatever reason, I'm pretty sure the crew would have noticed something was happening when the APS starts firing 1 minute before the burn. To be honest, I might have liked that more, with the crew realizing the burn was about to start and struggling to get off the booster before it ignited. But I can understand why they chose to go down the route they did.

I suppose what happened was that they were about 10 seconds from when the TLI burn was 'supposed' to happen when they did the self-check, so the booster decided to skip everything else and go straight to igniting the APS and then the engine. While we didn't actually see it happen, having the APS ignite 5 to 10 seconds before the J-2 wouldn't break the plot or anything, and it probably only needed a few seconds to settle the propellents enough for ignition to occur. The biggest issue is whether or not the J-2 can ignite without using the chilldown systems to clear the propellant feed lines. My initial guess is yes, but it would be a messy ignition, with a high chance of combustion instabilities.
 

Deleted member 90563

I was going to suggest Harry Hamlin, but Hamill would work!

More manly without the whiny voice.

Do we know that "Ivan" is definitely dead or is there still room for Crazy Ed to turn the oxygen back on and save him, and thus averting WW3?

I am *hoping* this is where they are going.
They definitely leave things hanging there without for sure showing that "Ivan" is dead, but something tells me he probably is. That said, as others have pointed out, Ed could potentially cover things up, or even if he doesn't I agree with most here that this would be a big incident but not WWIII worthy.

I'm sure the cosmonaut will be alive and well, albeit restrained, the next time we see lunar base.
 
More manly without the whiny voice.

When I posted the original scribbles, I was picturing Adams as being German. I'm looking forward to flashing the idea for the show out post next week's season finale, just in case (which would take place during the Christmas Break of the second season of Enterprise II).
 

Vidal

Donor
Do you guys think the show's having president obsess over NASA is realistic? In the last episode, it is rumored that Kennedy will be pulled from the ticket because of "repeated failures at NASA" - do you think it's realistic that a party would dump a president for that reason? Certainly I understand the argument that the US missing being first to the moon raises the stakes of the space race, but does the show overstate America's concern with space/how closely it ties a president's success to NASA's?
 
A thought.
I know Bowie's already released Major Tom at this point but I wouldn't be surprised if people start substituting "Major Cobb," after this episode.
 
Not sure how you'd cover up a crime by driving somewhere and dumping a body when there is no weather to erase the tracks for decades to come.
 
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