Well, I was close.
Also, that solar sail is far too small to be useful.
My guess for the next episode is that the Phoenix ship will have to pick up whoever is left on Sojourner, including those rescued from Mars-94.
And I’m still amazed at the difference in size between Sojourner and Phoenix.
Certainly the obvious storytelling resolution here is that all three nationalities end up on Phoenix, but maybe they can cobble together enough fuel to still make it to mars.
And then the defector thing will become an issue.
The space crisis in this episode made so much more sense than the ridiculous hotel one in episode 1. The Russians had a crisis because they were doing something they knew was dangerous, and then the Americans were under massive time pressure to help them, so didn’t have time to do everything carefully. Nothing like what should be a fairly routine repair on a single element of a nearly-fully-functioning space hotel.
One thing I didn’t like was how all of the other Helios employees except our named characters were douchebags. It should have been 55-45 or something. When all the unnamed characters are worse than all the named characters that just makes it feel like fiction.
Wait, was the defector the same cosmonaut who shook hands with Dani during the Apollo-Soyuz mission?
Fairly sure, no. The defector was one of the guys who the Americans shot on the moon due, leading to the big gun fight later on. One of the two of them burned to death, the other one survived and then asked to defect.
Fairly skeptical that a defector like that would end up as part of the ultra-elite crew of a Mars mission, but… maybe it’s partly a thumb-in-the-eye to the soviets?
Thanks; I have trouble keeping track of all of the peripheral characters, especially with as much time as there is between seasons.
And in this episode, we finally got details of just how financially successful NASA is in this show; someone said that NASA had a $75 billion surplus. And actually, I find the idea that NASA can be as active as it is on the show with an enormous permanent moon base and that profitable more ridiculous than the nuclear-powered Sojourner able to make it to Mars.
I think the idea is that NASA holds the patents for Helium-3 and bunches of other technology. Not so much that NASA itself is directly generating profit, but that it owns a small percentage of just about everything going on.
Did Sarah and Sam own the space hotel? If so, how? Wouldn’t something like that cost billions?
Karen Baldwin and Sam Cleveland owned the hotel. And yes, it would cost billions. (Not sure how running it as a hotel would pay off.)
Got another free trial of Apple TV+ (that makes it… what like 2.5 years of Apple TV+ I’ve had for free through various promotions now, lol). Starting watching S3. I agree with others that Ep1 was just dumb (esp none of the trained astronauts realizing that gravity was getting stronger and were alerted when a thrown show flops down when being thrown and the bride and groom on a cake sinking).
Ep2 was getting more interesting, but what in the world was Molly thinking by trying to announce Ed when Margot was out of town? Yeah, Molly is hard headed, but that’s just taking it to an extreme. It seems like she just jumped out of character so they could advance the plot and make Helios more of a player.
Happy to see Gary Hart got a couple terms in this timeline. I do think Ellen’s sexual orientation comes out before the election and she loses to Clinton. Maybe even by Bragg when/if he finds out.
I disagree. The Helios presentation reminded me too much of an Apple presentation (with Ed Baldwin as the “Just one more thing”).
Not to mention I doubt an Apple production is going to a 2nd generation immigrant whose dad was from sub-Saharan Africa into a big villain. Now he may be seen as being over his head and have his confidence shaken, but in the end he’ll be considered one of the ‘good guys’ I bet.
You just know that North Korean probe that launched before the manned missions has an astronaut with a one way ticket to Mars on board.
From your two posts…let’s just say that we can tell that you aren’t caught up on all episodes yet.
Yes, that was very much Chekhov’s (or perhaps Kim’s) rocket.
Well I did mention I only watched Ep1 and 2 
They have abandoned all pretense of trying to match real-world physics. The Phoenix is basically a Tardis, much bigger on the inside than the outside. But a near-vacuum Martian dust storm tosses it around like it is in a hurricane. And a small Martian lander can get like 50 feet from the surface and abort back to orbit likrle it is under lunar gravity.
Even fusion engines would require reaction mass.
Yes, one of the things that has fit in the ship, along with the engines themselves, radiation shielding (both from the engines and from cosmic/solar radiation) food, water, and air supplies for several months, life support equipment, living space, and elaborate, bulky solar sails on retractable booms.
The Order of the Phoenix built in a Room of Requirement.
For whatever reason, that didn’t bother me. I thought this episode was fine. Curious to see where Aleida’s discovery of Margo’s treachery goes, and curious to see what Karen does next. And what will Dev do, having lost the race?
I think the show has definitely lost a bit of what made it so great in season 1, but it’s still compulsively watchable.
Was it obvious to anyone who Danny’s video message was to? It felt like it was something important… something like “remind mom to feed Olivia” or something. Shouldn’t it have been to his wife?