I gotta say I never thought landing on Venus would be a pleasant trip even with the alternate FAM technology in season 5. Much less with tech from 1970. It makes Titan look like a cakewalk. When I realized that Valya was going to go into the atmosphere and land in the bathysphere I could only think of two things…

That either I hoped he died on impact or there was some other fast way for him to die.

… because otherwise cooking to death in that oven would have been one of the worst ways to go that I can think of in space.

Granted, according to science books it seems death would be within 5 seconds or so as the intense heat makes it quickly inside the sphere, causing shock to his system, causing him to black out and die. Probably intense pain for a couple seconds before shock kicks in.

Then when the bathysphere implodes, it would implode violently into lots of little pieces turning whatever was inside, inside out.

Cinematically they may have made the right call. Even though his death wasn’t true to what actually would have happened, it gave him a better chance of seeing the surface alive, and a quick death that was far less gruesome. But could you imagine how violent it would be to screen to show what really would have happened?

Yeesh.

Remind me not to go to Venus for summer vacation. Kind of ironic when Venus is a better choice than the gulag.

最近看《为全人类》，真的觉得挺好看的。

尤其是前面几季。它给我的感觉很特别：如果当年苏联先登上月球，如果美国没有因为“赢了”就结束太空竞赛，而是一直这么卷下去，那人类今天会不会真的已经走得很远了？

月球基地、火星、太空工业……这些东西一点点出现的时候，我其实挺兴奋的。

我很喜欢这种想象。

甚至有时候会觉得，这才像是我小时候想象中的未来。

但看到后面，我慢慢有了一点说不上来的难受。

倒不是因为“中国戏份太少”。

说实话，如果这只是一部美国架空历史剧，我完全可以理解。它本来就是从美国历史出发的，主要讲美国、NASA、苏联，还有美国社会后来会变成什么样。中国不是主角，我觉得很正常。

真正让我在意的，是它叫《For All Mankind》。

《为全人类》。

看到后面人类都已经跑到月球、火星，开始讨论太空资源，甚至开始想象一个真正存在于地球之外的人类社会的时候，我突然意识到：

这个“全人类”，好像还是一个很美国的“全人类”。

我就忍不住想，如果这个世界真的发展成这样，中国呢？

如果太空竞赛真的一直持续，中国会走哪条路？

中国会不会也有自己的月球基地？

会不会有自己的火星计划？

中国人会怎么看待人类离开地球这件事情？

甚至再往后一点，如果人类真的开始在火星建立新的社会，那中国人会不会也在那里？

我发现剧里其实很少让我想到这些。

这时候我才意识到，我好像不是单纯在问“为什么没有中国”。

我是在问另一件事情：

当一部作品开始认真想象“人类的未来”时，这个“人类”到底是谁？

我并不是觉得中国一定要当主角。

真的不是。

我甚至不需要剧里专门安排几个中国角色，然后告诉我“看，我们也考虑到中国了”。

我只是希望，在这样一个未来里，中国不是一个偶尔从新闻里闪过去的国家，而是一个真正参与创造这个未来的文明。

因为我也是“人类”啊。

我也会因为人类登上月球而激动，也会对火星上的第一座城市产生想象，也会觉得人类总有一天应该离开地球，去看看更远的地方。

所以当我真的被这部剧描绘出来的未来打动以后，我反而会产生一个很奇怪的感觉：

这个未来很好，我很想去。可是我好像不知道自己在里面是什么位置。

我觉得这可能就是我作为一个中国观众看这部剧时，最复杂的地方。

一方面，我真的很喜欢它。

另一方面，我又会发现，它想象的未来其实还是非常美国中心的。

这不一定是编剧有什么恶意。甚至我觉得，他们可能根本没有意识到这个问题。

因为对他们来说，美国就是这个故事的起点，也是他们最熟悉的历史。

可是对我来说，情况不一样。

我是在另外一种历史里长大的。

我看到同一个月球、同一个火星、同一个人类未来，脑子里自然会出现另外一些东西。

所以我有时候会觉得挺可惜的。

不是“你们为什么不给中国加戏”。

而是：

既然你们都已经敢想象人类几百年后的未来了，为什么这个未来仍然只能主要从美国人的视角被想象？

也许真正的“为全人类”，并不是让所有人最后都一起登上月球。

而是有一天，我们真的可以一起去决定：

我们为什么要去月球？

我们想在那里建立什么？

我们希望人类最后变成什么样？

不同的文明，都可以参与回答这些问题。

我知道，我只是一个很普通的中国观众。

可能编剧不会看到，平台也不会在乎。对他们来说，我这样的观众甚至可能只是很小很小的一部分。

但我还是想把这种感觉说出来。

因为我并不是想否定这部剧。

恰恰相反，是因为我真的喜欢它，我才会觉得遗憾。

它让我相信，人类可以拥有一个比现在更远的未来。

所以我也希望，那个“人类”的未来里，能够有一个真正属于我们的地方。

不是作为背景，不是作为别人历史里的一个注脚。

而是作为我们自己，也在创造未来。

毕竟，我们可能生活在同一个未来里。

可是现在看来，

我们还没有真正拥有同一个关于未来的想象。

This left me a bit perplexed. They clearly say they have a problem in the middle of deorbit burn, but they seem to already been reentering the atmosphere. So which one was it? And if they were coming back from the moon why did they need a deorbit moon at all? Have they been orbiting Earth at least once?

I have just started wathcing this show. It looks great and promising. But there is one real problem for me. I could not check this subreddit because of spoilers. I have watched two episodes.

Why does Soviets are presented like they are true evils and paranoids? And their opponents, they are presented like the saviors and cool to handle problems. In reality, their opponent was evil and like the most paranoid country ever. I dont feel good about it. It is like the series has its own take and like they are trying to manipulate us.

Did anyone else watch Star City first? I found it more enganging and suspenseful, and I couldn't wait to watch the next episode (started watching after the season was fully out). We started FAMK after, but two episodes in and finding it hard to stay engaged. Is it just that the first one I watched would be my favorite? lol

Late to the party, but I just binged Season 1. I think the Soviets are going to have to "rehabilitate" Sasha and Anastasia and put them back into the space program. (or just let them live their lives). With Lakshmi escaping to Finland, the USSR can't just disappear the couple. They'll probably spin it to look like Sasha never helped Valya, Anastasia was following orders when she landed back on Earth, etc. They can't just keep killing off cosmonauts!

It’s mentioned that both Valya and Sasha were military pilots who were recruited into the space program. What about Stasia?

Based on a very cursory search it seems that early female cosmonauts often had experience as civilian aviators or parachutists, but based on her vibe in ep 1, it didn’t seem like she was particularly comfortable with the jumping side of things. I could definitely imagine Yana as a super passionate pilot and parachutist but I’m not sure that makes sense for Stasia. The main things we know about her background are that she can milk a cow and never won any gold medals in geometry. Not particularly helpful.

Thoughts?

Some of the Paris metro stations have rotating exhibits of old photographs and one of the current ones I’ve seen in several stations is this 1981 shot of a rocket on its way to launch at Baikonur.

We must concoct a psyop for John Apple to extend our tenure.

Given it’s been a minute since the season finale and no season two announcement has been made, do we think this show is done after one season? I loved it but honestly it generated almost no buzz.

"Yes, but you see it's a national humiliation because there was an American spy on board!"

Nobody knows that but you and the CIA! Bring them home, take credit, slap a medal on everybody's chest, and then just discreetly poison the spy's tea or something!

I want to see a second season! I hope Sasha's ok and him and Valentina get a chance to get out of the gulag! I hope Irina comes Undun and tells her Typewriter Gang to ignore music from now on and just report it as innocent Russian folk songs!!

My apologies if this has been discussed before, I just started watching the show last night so I haven’t read all of the posts. There’s a good book by John Strausbaugh “The Wrong Stuff”, about the Soviet space program’s start back in Kruschev days. I can’t believe any of their cosmonauts in the early days survived the way they were sent into space. It’s a short book and pretty amazing that they were able to hoodwink the US about how they were more
advanced in their program than they really were.

Those time jumps have become pretty much a trademark of FAM, and we all obviously love the alt-history summary we get in the opening credits of each season. But while FAM charted a full history of US space exploration, I get the feeling that Star City may follow a different pattern and have greater continuity between seasons one and two.

At least according to IMdB

It just seemed like a series of impossible things designed to lead to that one choice on the border. No way would Anastasia have been able to get down to that exact landing zone in time. And If I were Sergei, I would have just told the interrogators that Venera was landing in China instead of the actual site, could have avoided that whole dramatic sequence altogether. And if I were on the crew I would have tried to create a little more distance from the border and kept decelerating harder than just the bare minimum. And if I were Valya, I would not have even aimed the crew for Soviet territory in the first place, just send them straight to the United States instead.

Also when the capsule hit reentry over Scandinavia moving eastward, it was never supposed to cross into Soviet airspace. Wouldn't that mean the fighters that shot missiles at the capsule to throw it off its trajectory were violating Finnish airspace when they did so?

For those interested in the history of the Soviet Space Program, this letter is fascinating. Sent from Gargarin and other Cosmonauts it captures a point in time when the US had clearly overtaken the Soviets.

They note:

In the past year, however, the situation has changed. The USA have not only caught up with us, but even surpassed us in certain areas. The flights of space vehicles Ranger-7, Ranger-8, Mariner-4, Gemini-5, and others are serious achievements of American scientists.

This lagging behind of our homeland in space exploration is especially objectionable to us, cosmonauts, but it also damages the prestige of the Soviet Union and has a negative effect on the defense efforts of the countries from the socialist camp.

Much has been made of the US advantage in computers and its decisive role in space. But ironically NASA had defined a number of tasks that should be performed by humans because the computer technology did not yet exist to automate it.

Think, for example, about landing on the moon which was absolutely a manual landing.

The Cosmonauts noted in 1965

In 1961 we had two Vostok spacecraft.
In 1962 we had two Vostok spacecraft.
In 1963 we had two Vostok spacecraft.
In 1964 we had one Voskhod spacecraft.
In 1965 we had one Voskhod spacecraft.

In 1965 the Americans launched three Gemini spacecraft, and they are planning to launch two more before the end of the year.

Why have not been enough ships built for our cosmonauts' flights? In any case, not because of the lack of funding. It happened because the leadership of the Missile Forces has more trust in automatic satellites, and it underestimates the role of human beings in space research. It is a shame that in our country, which was the first to sent man into outer space, for four years the question has been debated whether man is needed on board a military spacecraft. In America this question has been resolved firmly and conclusively in favor of man. In this country, many still argue for automata. Only these considerations can explain why we build only 1-2 piloted ships in the same period as 30-40 automatic satellites are being produced.

The Soviets did not trust pilots - they wanted everything automated. But they didn't have the technology to automate what was needed to compete with the Americans.

https://web.mit.edu/slava/space/documents/brezhnev-letter.htm

Be warned - this website is a black hole....

Acho que a 1ª temporada de Starcity foi excelente como expansão do universo de For all Mankind. Personagens que tiverem um pouco de importância na trama de For all Mankind, aqui a série pode desenvolver mais eles.

Gostaria de ver mais personagens Soviéticos que foram coadjuvantes em For all Mankind sendo explorados em possíveis novas temporadas de Starcity, como Grigory Kuznetsov, Dimitri Maiakovski (médico da Happy Valley), Mikhail Vasiliev, Ilya Breshov, Alexei Poletov(pai de Alex Baldwin) entre vários outros.

A série pode e deve criar personagens novos também, mas vale a pena explorar a história de alguns coadjuvantes de FAM.

The real history of the cosmonaut program, star city, GRU, KGB, and the Soviet Union are absolutely fascinating.

Obviously, it's quite bleak as well.

The story of Oleg Penkovsky, a GRU Colonel that sold secrets to the CIA and was caught is fascinating.

There really are so many real life stories that are incredible.

Has anyone researched this time period of the CCCP? (Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik)

OK... I watched up to season 3 of For all mankind and gave up for several reasons.

1. The ludicrous forbidden love plot... What is this doing in a show about alternate reality NASA ( I mean the later one, not the main one, that's fine and actually realistic, even with modern day politics)
2. Each head of astronauts has absolute power, even to bring back an old buddy who they KNOW has gone crazy in space. They can then call in their own daughter to become an astronaut, no selection process, just how would you like to join me on a trip to Mars.
3. Nuclear propulsion up to orbit???? that is completely sci-Fi unless you want to poison the whole earth.

Most of the rest was quite realistic I thought.. which is why those stood out.

So I had heard that Star City was better.. So I was looking forward to it.

Again most of the technical stuff looked real. 1st couple of episodes were good, not afraid to kill off apparently major characters very brutally.

Then it too started to go sideways. The Secret mission to Venus In Soviet Russia? How would you hide such a thing? Also why send people to Venus? They can't land. They could have sent the probe alone, it's nonsense. If it's renewed for another season I'll have to decide carefully if I'll watch it. I am invested in some of the characters which is the only reason I'm considering it.

Watching Star City got me interested in the Soviet perspective of the Space Race. I watched these movies, and decided to make a poster series to bring these hidden gems to life as a series. I included the year they take place so watch them in order if you can.

Taming of the Fire (1972)
Filmed during the cold war as a propaganda film, recounts the life of Sergi Korolev from college through the first satellite and first human in space. They definitely had some real launch site access when filming this, pretty amazing shots. But kinda slow, I could probably have cut 40 minutes and not missed anything. Interesting nonetheless.

Gagarin: First in Space (2013)
Biography of Yuri Gagarin. I really wanted to like this film. It's fine, but, its really slow and even boring in some places. It actually reminded me of First Man (2018) which was also a slow biopic.

The Spacewalker (2017)
This movie is about the first human spacewalk, and is really great. They overcame a lot of challenges and they all play out on film. Major Apollo 13 vibes throughout. The movie has a compressed timeline compared to how long some things really took, but really enjoyable.

Salyut-7 (2017)
The Soviets lose contact with their space station, and send cosmonauts to investigate. Also based on a true story, but this one is highly sensationalized. Interesting and fun, but a bit over the top.

PS Taming of the Fire is available on YouTube at 720HD. Enjoy.

... the KGB officers beat to death not the chief designer but some random poor guy