For All Mankind - Major Spoilers Inside
First I wanted to start off by apologizing for my absence from writing for the last few months. It has been a bit hectic and hard to work on this passion project at times but it is my hope to really get it off the ground now.
The space race is something that captivates many minds, both young and old alike. It was seen as one of the greatest achievements to land on the moon before the end of the 1960s yet we have not been back since. Not only have we not been back, but outside of the few Apollo missions that landed on the moon, we have not made any meaningful attempts to establish any sort of moon base or colony.
The series by Apple TV, in its second season, upends all that we know about the space race. Instead of landing on the moon first, the Soviet’s beat us to the moon. Whereas in our timeline our landing first caused the Soviet’s to stop pushing for the moon, in the timeline shown by For All Mankind, our second place finish causes a slew of events that, in retrospect, might have made for a better world today.
The entire premise of the series is how things would be different if we had not landed on the moon first and by the looks of it, many things would have been different. First and foremost, the US decides that it must not come out 2nd place so they make it their mission to establish a moon base prior to the Soviets. This triggers a renewed space race. Without going into the details of the entire first season, a few key events that I noticed:
The USSR landed a woman on the moon and transmitted her image for all to see. This caused the Nixon administration to push for our own woman on the moon, accelerating women entering the STEM workforce by quite a bit. In fact the series not only sees women in positions of power as part of the space race, but one of the main characters Margo Madison eventually becomes the Director of NASA in the early 1980s. Throughout the entirety of NASA you can observe women in all facets working as astronauts and engineers. It is really something special to see.
Ted Kennedy has to meet with congressional leaders to discuss the failure of the US to reach the moon before the USSR. This causes him to not have the incident in Chappaquiddick that results in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne and hurts and potential presidency run. We see him win the presidency and become president in 1972. During his first State of Union speech he vows that the USSR will not beat the US to Mars, likely setting up further seasons of the series.
Ice is found on the moon. This is a huge deal is it means that it can be turned into hydrogen which can be used as rocket fuel. This is something that has huge ramifications because it means that the moon can be used as a base to launch deeper flights into the solar system.
Some major deaths take place during the first season that sort of give rise to these new created characters that were made for the For All Mankind universe including the death of Gene Kranz on a launchpad accident as well as Deke Slayton in space.
The Equal Rights Amendment is ratified. This is likely in direct response to female contributions to the space program with the 37th state being Illinois to ratify it.
These major events drive a lot of the entire season. A lot of other details take place but in my mind these large ones will then drive the narrative going into season two. Season two begins with a few minute long montage that if you blink you might miss some of the huge changes to the timeline. We will go through them one at a time as they are shown to us on screen.
Ronald Regan wins the presidency in 1976 and is re-elected in 1980. He wins it due to a Supreme Court decision that partially marked ballots from Ohio can be counted. This mirrors the 2000 election in our own timeline quite a bit yet it has huge ramifications for the rest of the timeline.
The USSR and US had a “Outer Space Treaty” that is dissolved with Regan being president, escalating the space race. This appears to be a direct result of the Soviet’s launching the largest ever rocket into space.
The US lands the Sojourner rover on MARS in 1976, a full 20 years faster than in our own timeline.
The Camp David peace accords fail with no settlement between Egypt and Israel. Furthermore we see Anwar Sadat survive his assassination attempt with unknown consequences to the timeline.
Roman Polanski is arrested at the US/Canada border.
The USSR never invades Afghanistan, citing the need to focus on the ongoing space race and diverting resources to their moon base. This will likely have massive repercussions to our timeline since without the USSR/Afghan war, the Mujahedeen will not be funded by the US and trained/armed by the US, creating Osama Bin Laden. I will be quite curious to see where this massive change takes us.
We have the dawn of the personal computer taking place in the early 1980s on top of solar energy causing a slew of innovation, likely relaxing US dependence on fossil fuels which will have massive effects on the environment long term. We also see the Three Mile Island meltdown being prevented due to technology developed for the Jamestown base on the moon. This means nuclear energy may see a larger role in our society, further helping reduce dependence on foreign oil.
The Iranian Hostage Crisis was resolved by President Regan launching a surprise raid after only 92 days that results in 6 hostages and 3 US soldiers being killed. A raid such as this was launched by Carter however; the raid suffered catastrophic failure during the mission and had to be aborted.
The Miracle on Ice did not happen with the USSR beating the US hockey team in the 1980 Winter Olympics.
Assassinations: John Lennon survives the attempt on his life whereas Pope John Paul II is shot to death in St. Peter’s Square. I am curious the repercussions this would have for the world as a whole and why the decision was made to do this by the writers.
Prince Charles marries Camilla as opposed to Princess Dianna. Again another curious decisions that I am assuming is a throw away device just to show how little things were different.
We had a minor shooting incident in Berlin where gunfire was exchanged after a East German Tank chased a couple attempting to leave East Berlin, causing tensions to rise between the US and USSR.
Technology: We see three key pieces of technology appear well before when they did in our timeline. First of all, in 1983 the employees at NASA reference sending files via “digital mail” meaning they are emailing documents well before email became a thing or popular. We also see them communicating via what is essentially Facetime with astronauts on the moon rather seamlessly. Finally, plug in electric cars with a 60 mile range are available to the general population through battery technology that NASA pioneered and patented.
Militarization: It is a key point to note that the military appears to be 100% involved with the space race to include the military having its own launch facilities, its own space shuttle, and talk exists of arming space shuttles for possible confrontations with the Soviets. This is further implied by the trailer for Season 2 where at one point we see firearms in space.
This last piece is not really a change in the timeline but worth noting. It seems that NASA is making money through patents developed through the space program and then turned into useful applications on Earth. I am wondering if one of those patents is the ‘digital mail’.
As you can see, quite a lot is different between our two timelines thanks to one very minor, and quite frankly plausible, change in history. It honestly makes me a bit sad that the Soviet’s had not beaten us to the moon as if this was a possible outcome, it would have likely been better for all mankind. We might have a colony on Mars now if this timeline had come to be.
I personally look forward to more interesting episodes with new changes to our timeline.
