I’m starting to get tired of the “Danny Steven’s about to confess and fate let’s him off the hook” trope.
The statement about Kelly’s pregnancy endangering the Soviets mission? Dudes! You are at the mercy of NASA or Helios to live and get home.
Margo looking back on the conference room table where they solved the problem tells me that she misses the actual work. She still has the reckoning barreling down the tracks for her. Oh, she was still a contending B when she hunted down Dev in the gallery. I connected with this plot point. I’ve supported 2 crew rotations from JSC and I would sit in the gallery of the Apollo control room and let that room talk to me. I would stand at the Flight Directors console and take in the ramifications of the thousands of decisions that were made there. I would then walk down to Comm Control and setup the emergency Comm network to be ready if needed.
Karen is the new Mrs. Deke Slayton rallying around the “Astronaut Wives”. While she “hated space”, she is anchored by it.
Danielle Pool is showing why she was the right choice to lead the Mars Mission for NASA. She is in command, she is focused on the rescue and gets it done. Love that they are calling her “Skip”.
Dev focusing on the problem and then turning it upside down showed the differences in the culture.
So, the Mars team is stuck on the surface since the MSAM is a hunk of junk. Phoenix will just orbit and provide a Comm relay since they don’t have fuel to depart. Can’t drill for water since the one rig is destroyed and the other rig is on Phoenix and it cannot get down to the surface. Helios has one Hab left, NASA has its outpost and It’s ship that cannot fly.
Given past dialog this mission was an out and back, with colonization down the road. So there is no rescue (that we know of) for 4 years (launch rescue in 2 years then return in 2 years). Survival just got much harder. Thanks Danny.
