The latest trailer for For All Mankind shows off a race to Mars
Being first is what it's all about
Last month, we got our first look at the upcoming third season For All Mankind, as well as a release date: June 10th. Of all the shows that are coming out this year, this is high up on my most anticipated list: the first season was excellent, but season two was flat-out great television.
With this upcoming third season, we've known that the action would be headed beyond the Moon as the US and Russia set their sights on the next location of the Cold War: Mars.
In this latest trailer, we learn just how high the stakes are: the US, USSR, and a private space company called Helios have all launched missions to the Red Planet, and they're on their way in what amounts to a race to be the first to put footprints on the alien world.
Throughout the space race, there were plenty of scientists and space enthusiasts who imagined what might have happened had the space race continued unabated. Season 2 made a good case for how dangerous that might have been: however exciting a human presence on the moon might be to those who want to see us expand deeper into space, that excitement is counterbalanced by the growing nuclear tensions on the surface of Earth.
From the looks of things, those tensions are going to be high, indeed, as all three entities race towards the surface with the goal of being first. From the trailer, it looks as though the various crews will run into any number of problems on the journey, and on the surface.
There are some other interesting things here too: the introduction of a private space company looks intriguing, Wilson is running to become a senator in Texas (which should be interesting, seeing that she's closeted), and that all three efforts are using a bunch of different spaceship designs to reach Mars.
There's any number of novels about missions to Mars: Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars), Ben Bova's Mars, Mary Robinette Kowal's The Fated Sky, Andy Weir's The Martian, Meg Howrey's The Wanderers, and others, and it'll be interesting to see just where this season takes that particular story. The visuals look fun here: like something out of KSR's book covers.
Season 3 drops on June 10th.