Review: For All Mankind, "Seven Minutes of Terror" | Season 3, Episode 5
The race for Mars comes to an end, but there's nothing simple about its conclusion
“That’s in the past. Focus on what you can do now.”
Danielle Poole’s words to her stepson about his bad SAT scores is good advice, and she’s proud when she has it parroted back to her while she’s dealing with the aftermath of the tragic deaths of two astronauts and a cosmonaut during the rescue of Mars 94. It’s especially important advice because it turns out that NASA is able to refuel using the Russian engine—gosh, I wonder how that could be!—and the mission to Mars has now become a joint effort between two former rivals, with Danielle managing a ship full of astronauts and cosmonauts working toward a shared goal but not necessarily with shared values.
For the most part, Sojourner handles this task effectively. We don’t see too much tension between Rolan and the other cosmonauts, for instance, and Kelly’s radio friend turns out to be their nuclear engine expert, and settles into some comfortable banter as he works with Kelly to interpret Aleida’s instructions coming fr…