bawfuls posted:

The political subtext I take from it is that Reagan's timing means his presidency doesn't realign national politics the same way it did IRL. So they can pretend Ellen is more of a liberal Republican president. Her VP represents the forces Reagan really animated IRL but which aren't as powerful in the show.

She's like a Republican Clinton in a way.

Grand Fromage posted:

o. I thought Ted replaced Carter.

Cojawfee posted:

The only way we'd see Ellen again after this next episode is if she doesn't run at all or loses the 96 election, and then runs again in 10 years. If she stays as president, she'll be out in 2000, and the next season will likely be in the mid 2000s. If they do go for the Al Gore route, it will probably better to just have the white house be out of the picture entirely. I'm not really sure what Ellen would be able to do on the show though. Modern ex-presidents tend to disappear into the background, though some annoyingly stick around.

Mister Bates posted:

while this season has overall been good (with some stumbles here and there and a few absolute poo poo garbage moments), the story of the DPRK somehow getting to Mars would have been far better, and that ending made me sad we didn't get that show.

this tiny underdog country that absolutely no one expected, kludging together, not only a manned space program, but a successful manned Mars mission, out of obsolete Soviet space technology and dogged determination. an entire season of trying to solve the extreme engineering challenges of a manned Mars mission without any fancy nuclear thermal engines, solar sails, spin gravity, superpower-level industrial capacity and capital, or decades of experience in manned spaceflight. yeeting a guy into deep loving space in an old Soyuz capsule atop a rocket made out of trash and duct tape. basically the writers have created a world where Kerbal Space Program is real and was happening just off screen this whole time. it's completely ridiculous and completely shatters any pretext the show had of being plausible alternate history, but it would also be incredibly entertaining, and using it as an episode-ending plot twist like this just seems like such a goddamn waste.

Open Source Idiom posted:

Didn't they mention that Ellen had aligned herself with Atwater?

GABA ghoul posted:

You gotta put some big rear end quotes around manned space program here though. If you don't plan to bring the astronaut home or do any serious science on Mars you can probably cut 2/3 of the technology requirements and it becomes a much, much simpler challenge. In real life the Soviet Union managed to land on Mars in the 70s already and what NK did doesn't seem to be substantially more advanced.

Mokotow posted:

Why would North Korea stay quiet about landing on Mars? That runs counter to how their propaganda works.

Mokotow posted:

Why would North Korea stay quiet about landing on Mars? That runs counter to how their propaganda works.

Jerusalem posted:

I know they're not quite in the same state as they are in the real world thanks to the Soviets still providing support, but maybe it's a situation like "Glorious Leader played golf once, scored a perfect 18 and never played again!" where they're constantly telling everybody that they sent a cosmonaut to Mars and he's there RIGHT NOW and everybody just smiles and nods and says,"Sure thing buddy," then ignores it!

Senor Tron posted:

With how close he is to their landing site it has to be intentional. I think the chances are 50/50 that:
1.NK were going for a first landing victory, not caring about losing the human involved, but had a comms failure at some point which means they don't know the landing actually happened.
2. They were planning on waiting until Helios/NASA leaves and then taking over their current infrastructure before the next Mars crews arrive. In this scenario they could retrospectively claim the first footprint on Mars victory, and also say that they have legit control over the Helios and NASA assets on Mars because they landed in NK territory and were abandoned. In this they wouldn't necessarily be wanting to hold them permanently, it would be about being globally recognised as a major space player.

Spacebump posted:

Unless the North Korean has a vehicle, he couldn’t make it to the other landing sites. They had a line about the probe that being out of walking range.

Senor Tron posted:

He was 80km away.

For NASA/USSR/Helios that's a couple of days in a rover.

For a NK suicide mission that's what, a few days walk?

Comrade Fakename posted:

I imagine the writers’ room had some fun working out a “The Martian”-style scenario for the NK guy to have survived on Mars with just a Soyuz lander. We’ll probably hear about it next episode.

pokeyman posted:

I'd love to see a lil montage or something of his journey. I'm worried we won't because of how little we ever see from the USSR: seems like if our main characters aren't in the room, we get nothing.

So I guess I hope he was just hanging out a few miles away from the others' clusterfuck en route and listening in on their radios.

Unkempt posted:

Crameltonian posted:

I 100% do not buy Ed having not been homophobic at any point on screen, but I'd rather have everyone be unrealistically accepting than have to sit through yet more scenes of straights being coddled into showing basic human decency to gay people tbh.

Senor Tron posted:

A year or so of life support and all the rations, oxygen, and water storage and/or reuse needed for that is a big ask just for a single human. Hell even today if would probably be considered almost impossible to put someone inside something the size of a Soyuz and have them survive a year completely sealed away.

Spacebump posted:

I wonder what this NK’s economy is like since the USSR still exists.

pokeyman posted:

I'd love to see a lil montage or something of his journey. I'm worried we won't because of how little we ever see from the USSR: seems like if our main characters aren't in the room, we get nothing.

Grand Fromage posted:

For reference this is the interior of a Soyuz with a typical cargo load for going to/from the ISS.



Soyuz also has an orbital segment that was used when it was just flying by itself and gives it some more room. That part can't land.

Mister Bates posted:

while this season has overall been good (with some stumbles here and there and a few absolute poo poo garbage moments), the story of the DPRK somehow getting to Mars would have been far better, and that ending made me sad we didn't get that show.

this tiny underdog country that absolutely no one expected, kludging together, not only a manned space program, but a successful manned Mars mission, out of obsolete Soviet space technology and dogged determination. an entire season of trying to solve the extreme engineering challenges of a manned Mars mission without any fancy nuclear thermal engines, solar sails, spin gravity, superpower-level industrial capacity and capital, or decades of experience in manned spaceflight. yeeting a guy into deep loving space in an old Soyuz capsule atop a rocket made out of trash and duct tape. basically the writers have created a world where Kerbal Space Program is real and was happening just off screen this whole time. it's completely ridiculous and completely shatters any pretext the show had of being plausible alternate history, but it would also be incredibly entertaining, and using it as an episode-ending plot twist like this just seems like such a goddamn waste.

Farmer Crack-rear end posted:

Pretty sure the orbital module is still there on trips to ISS too.

Rappaport posted:

This latest episode was only ~45 mins, could those 15 mins be towards a longer season finale? How does Apple TV+ "air time" work? That'd be a little time to spare for a Best Korea montage.

Spacebump posted:

Unless the North Korean has a vehicle, he couldn’t make it to the other landing sites. They had a line about the probe that being out of walking range.

Grand Fromage posted:

Yeah the dock is on the orbital module, for some reason I thought they just docked directly since you don't really need the orbital module for shuttling to a station. Anyway point remains, poo poo's tiny.