First is what changes things.
Dev Ayesa, season 3, episode 4, "Happy Valley"
The Race to Mars was a major event of the Space Race in the mid 1990s, in which the space agencies of the United States and the Soviet Union, NASA and Roscosmos, together with the private company Helios Aerospace, competed to land the first humans on Mars. Additionally, North Korea sent a secretly-crewed probe during the same launch window. The race was the result of decades of planning and technological advancements following the race to the Moon and the race for the base.
History[]
Planning and building[]
NASA director and engineer Margo Madison and Roscosmos engineer Sergei Nikulov, who worked closely together during the Apollo-Soyuz mission, exchanged information from each other's space programs to help the progress of their Mars missions, despite competing against each other. Nikulov was forced to ask Madison for NASA's nuclear engine design on their spacecraft, Sojourner 1, and she was subsequently blackmailed by the KGB after she refused, who threatened to kill Nikulov, whom she was very close with.[1]
Edward Baldwin was originally the planned commander for NASA's first crewed mission to Mars, and wanted to bring his daughter Kelly with him. But he was replaced by Danielle Poole, a close friend of him, after Molly Cobb, who had selected Baldwin, was fired by Madison due to her choice of commander. Disappointed, Baldwin and Poole's relationship fell apart and at the request of Baldwin's ex-wife, Karen Baldwin, he was subsequently recruited by Helios Aerospace CEO Dev Ayesa to command their mission to Mars, to the shock of Kelly, who decided to join NASA's Mars mission instead. The damaged orbital hotel Polaris was also purchased by Helios to be used as part of their spacecraft traveling to Mars, now under the name Phoenix.
Departure[]
As NASA's Sojourner-1, Helios' Phoenix and Roscosmos' Mars-94 are in the final stages of departure, North Korea secretly launches a much simpler Soyuz-based ship in September 1994 to land first, albeit without any means to return their two-man crew home. Still smarting from poor public opinion of their space program falling behind, North Korea plan to reveal it is a crewed mission only if they successfully land and the US and Soviets incorrectly assume the mission is instead an unmanned probe.
At least one week after the North Korean "probe" was launched, the other three spacecrafts all departed for Mars within two weeks of each other.
The trip to Mars[]
Setting sail[]
- See also: Solar sails and Operation Jolly Roger
Sojourner deploys its solar sails
Soon after launch and their initial trajectory burns and still over 240 million km away from Mars, Phoenix is in the small lead only 30 km in front of Sojourner 1, followed by Mars-94 about 670 km away. Danielle Poole has a peaceful video chat with Ed Baldwin and Kelly. Shortly after, Sojourner 1, while playing pirate-style music, reveals and deploys two solar sails to get ahead of Phoenix, to the shock of Helios. Bill Strausser calculates that they will beat them by 8 days. Dev Ayesa, angered, vows for Phoenix to retake the lead, crashing a monitor.
Something very dangerous[]
Kelly Baldwin receives a transmission from Mars-94, in which an unidentified cosmonaut tells her that his colleagues are about to do something "very dangerous" to get ahead of the Americans. The call is abruptly ended, shocking Baldwin.
Later, Mars-94 activates their nuclear engines to accelerate fast enough to pass Sojourner and Phoenix. The gamble fails, and the engines cutoff too early. It is soon revealed to be an engine meltdown, and that the Soviets have roughly 72 hours before the meltdown kills everyone onboard their ship. After debating their next actions, the crew of Phoenix decide to attempt a rescue mission, despite the majority of Helios's Mission Control objecting against it, insisting to let NASA proceed with the rescue of the Soviets. As a result, when Ed tries to proceed with the rescue mission, Dev Ayesa locks manual control of the spacecraft for any of the onboard astronauts, leaving the rescue to Sojourner.
The rescue[]
- Main article: Rescue of Mars-94
Mars-94 collides with Sojourner
Sojourner reaches Mars-94 and a tether is attached between the two spacecraft. The five cosmonauts on board preform EVAs to use the tether to pull their way to the other ship. When the first cosmonaut enters the airlock, he is restrained to the wall by Rolan Baranov, who was waiting inside, as another cosmonaut climbs inside. However, a liquid hydrogen tank on Mars-94 ruptures, causing the Soviet spacecraft to collide with Sojourner. Sylvie Kaplan, who is outside the ship, is crushed by the oncoming ship, while Oleg Sidorov, the last cosmonaut attempting to make it to Sojourner, fatally hits Mars-94 head first after the tether snaps, shattering his helmet open. The other half of the tether then kills Scottish ESA astronaut, and member of the NASA crew, Clarke Halladay, by breaking the glass of his helmet.[2]
Grief and burn[]
Later, the astronauts and cosmonauts onboard Sojourner express their sympathies to the lives lost during the rescue, as does the American president, former astronaut Ellen Wilson. Afterwards, Sojourner uses the fuel taken from Mars-94 to make the final burn to Mars, also redeploying the solar sails again.
Stranger in a strange land[]
Reaching Mars first, the North Korean "probe" crash-lands into the surface on Feburary 8, 1995, killing one of the two cosmonauts secretly onboard, and damaging the communications array. The survivor, Lee Jung-Gil, becomes the first man to walk on Mars, though this achievement is not broadcast due to the lack of communications.
Orbit & landing[]
Button up, people. We're going straight in.
Danielle Poole, season 3, episode 5, "Seven Minutes of Terror"
Phoenix reaches Mars' orbit before Sojourner, but is unable to land immediately due to a massive dust storm obscuring the landing sites. Three days later, Sojourner-1 catches up and arrives in Mars' orbit as well. Despite the intense storm, Ed Baldwin and Danny Stevens decide to attempt a landing in Phoenix's surface access module, Popeye, while Poole rejects the landing, choosing to wait another orbit until they reach their landing decision point again. But approximately thirty seconds before reaching that point, the winds begin to clear up. Six seconds before passing the decision point, Poole decides to attempt a landing, just as Popeye is entering the Martian atmosphere.
Landing blind[]
Popeye aborts its landing attempt
As Sojourner begins their descent, Popeye loses their Mars GPS nav system as the master alarm sounds, reminding Baldwin of his experience deciding to not land Apollo 10 on the Moon, despite being given the chance to. Brushing the memory aside, he decides to continue descent anyway, as Popeye begins to clear the Martian atmosphere. As Sojourner approaches the surface, it fires its descent engines to slow down, while Popeye loses its altimeter info at just below 1,000 meters as Baldwin switches to manual control. Ed is able to make out mountains out the window, indicating Popeye is descending too fast and too close to hazardous terrain. He aborts the landing, to Danny' protest, as Sojourner's landing gear deploys while descending too fast. But Sojourner contacts the Martian surface and successfully lands as Popeye shuts off abort engines. Poole proudly announces Sojourner 1's successful landing of eight human beings on Mars, to widespread celebrations on Earth. President Wilson also gives a speech alongside Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
Going together[]
After landing, Poole prepares the astronauts for the first EVA on Mars when Grigory Kuznetsov unexpectedly steps into the airlock first. Danielle argues that she was to go onto the surface first according to a deal previously made, while Grigory claims he does not remember such a deal. Furious, she follows him out onto the ramp. People across the world watch as the two walk down onto the surface together, taking supposedly the first steps ever on another planet, before both collapsing onto the Martian surface and beginning to wrestle each other.[3]
Gallery[]
See also[]
References
- ↑ For All Mankind TV series, season 3, episode 3, "All In"
- ↑ For All Mankind TV series, season 3, episode 4, "Happy Valley"
- ↑ For All Mankind TV series, season 3, episode 5, "Seven Minutes of Terror"