With Season 5 premiering later this month and a spin-off set to bow in May, For All Mankind has arguably the single best premise in modern sci-fi: what if the space race never ended? The simple answer is that the world would look different, but the series goes beyond, looking at possible ramifications and providing a much-needed optimistic outlook on the potential our own world still has.
What Is ‘For All Mankind’ About?
It’s June 1969, and everyone is glued to their TV screens watching Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov. The USSR has beaten the United States to the moon by a full month, planting its flag on the surface and irrevocably taking the lead in the space race. This simple historical twist turns For All Mankind‘s alternate history upside down, since, in reality, the Soviets never reached the moon, and the space race ended six years after the Apollo 11 mission.
However, For All Mankind rewrites history; with the Soviets in the lead, the pressure is now on the U.S. not just to catch up, but actually to overtake them, since they missed all the important “firsts,” and being the runner-up essentially equals second place in the Cold War. So, the U.S. government begin to consider NASA’s space program a priority, determined to beat the USSR to other milestones in space. In other words, this defeat ultimately has a positive effect, as it drives American scientists and astronauts to go beyond what the Soviets have already achieved.
Each season of For All Mankind takes place in a different decade, tweaking some important historical milestones and adding others. It’s impossible for the series to skip a few key moments in the space race, such as Neil Armstrong’s moon landing, but they end up being very different from how they historically happened. Other projects, like the Sea Dragon, do see the light of day in the series, serving as a reminder of everything that could have been accomplished, but ultimately wasn’t.
In ‘For All Mankind,’ the Whole World Benefits From Space Exploration
With so much funding and attention being directed to NASA and space exploration, technology is developed not only at a much faster pace, but also in completely different directions in For All Mankind compared to what has happened historically. One mission is quickly followed by another, forcing engineers to get creative and find alternatives that eventually find their way into day-to-day life. In that sense, the series’s alternate world looks closer to what science fiction writers imagined the future would look like decades ago.
Another major difference is how important and easily widespread green energy has become. Cars are mostly electric in For All Mankind, thanks in no small part to improvements made through space exploration. Mining missions have also made this process much cheaper and easier down on Earth, with access to alternative energy sources becoming a financial and political issue. The space race takes place simultaneously with the consolidation of the nuclear age, and that plays a major role in decisions concerning the whole world, especially those at the bottom of the societal chain.
Progress Isn’t Limited to Space and Technology in ‘For All Mankind’
One of the best parts of every new installment of For All Mankind is the quick reel that plays at the beginning of the premiere, showing what has happened in the world between seasons. It situates the audience in the series’ current time period, but also offers a sense of just how much has changed thanks to everything that happened previously. As one can imagine, reaching the moon first has a profound impact on Soviet politics, renewing their strength and turning them into a much more powerful global player.
However, U.S. politics arguably change the most. The Soviets know all about their rivals’ civil rights and equality struggles at the dawn of the space age, and take advantage of that by adding more “firsts” to their accomplishments. Again, this forces the U.S. to catch up and reshuffle its departments on pretty much every level to address representation. Women achieve leadership positions that, in our world, hardly ever go beyond speculation, and civil rights quickly become as important an issue in space as they are on Earth.
With For All Mankind‘s space race reaching well beyond its real-life limits, the series also incorporates contemporary aspects of space exploration, like the role of corporate players. Important as it is, NASA is still a government agency, and, just like in the real world, the private sector takes an interest in space, becoming a contender in itself as the race continues. All that makes For All Mankind the best modern work in the alt-history subgenre of sci-fi, as well as inspiring and honest about the possibilities in our own future.