"For All Mankind"

 

    When I discovered "The Pitt,"  I thought I had finally discovered the greatest television drama ever made, definitely the greatest medical drama ever made.  However, I've just recently discovered the original Apple TV shows "For All Mankind" and "Star City," and I think I have new favorites.  "For All Mankind" has been around for a while, but I had never heard of it before.  Season 6 is being released soon, and I've only comoleted season 2 so far.  I only found it after watching the only season of "Star City,"  a spinoff story told from the Soviet perspective.  

    Here's the alternate history premise:  The Soviets landed on the moon first, seemingly winning the Space Race.  "FAM" follows the resulting fallout on American and world history and particularly on the lives of the men and women of the space program.  "Star City"  tells the story from the Soviet perspective.  Both shows brilliantly mix real historical figures and events with fictional figures and events to tell riveting stories.  They're great examples of alternate history, sci fi, elevated soap opera, spy thriller, action adventure, and generational family saga.

  

    Personally, I have never considered myself to be particularly interested in space, in the same way that I've never been particularly interested in detailed military history.  I am much more interested in the stories of the people involved, the causes, and the effects.  "FAM" and "Star City" have totally captured my interest.  I'm telling everybody who has Apple TV that they're must watch shows.

    Maybe the shows will inspire you to look for books for more information.  I've compiled a list of books about the US and Soviet space programs, fiction and nonfiction, that you may want to consider.  I've read some of them, and I've discovered more that I might add to my list in the future.

    

    There wouldn't be much of a US space program without the leadership of Wernher Von Braun and many other German scientists who either escaped the Nazi regime to the US before and during World War II or who were "encouraged" to migrate to the US in exchange for immunity for prosecution for war crimes.  I haven't read either of these von Braun biographies, but I am considering adding one of these to my TBR.  I have read Operation Paperclip, a detailed investigation of the elaborate operations at the end of WWII in which American and Soviet intelligence agencies feverishly competed to snatch up German physicists, chemists, and engineers and entice, encourage, persuade, or force them to work for one side or the other in the developing Cold War/Space Race.  Some of them, like von Braun, had been deeply involved in Nazi operations, with knowledge of, and sometimes active participation, in crimes against humanity.  In return for their service, their past records were expunged, and they were given immunity from prosecution.  A great companion to Paperclip is The Bastard Brigade.  It's a broader look at ongoing efforts during the war to kidnap or rescue Axis scientists behind enemy lines.

    Owing to the nature of Soviet totalitarianism, the Soviet space program was cloaked in complete and total secrecy for decades.  Soviet plans, accidents, failures, and deaths were successfully kept under wraps, and only carefully crafted party-approved - and party-created - storylines were dribbled out to the world, including to the Soviet public.  American intelligence couldn't even penetrate the veil.  In the 1980s, science journalist James Oberg was able to uncover some stories, and he published books like Red Star in Orbit which I read at the time.  The Wrong Stuff is a much more recent publication, 2024, that I'd like to check out.  Two of the most famous Russian cosmonauts, Yuri Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova, should have great biographies written about them, but I didn't find many.  Starman seems to be a highly respected bio of Gagarin.  Two Sides of the Moon is a dual autobiography of early astronaut David Scott and early cosmonaut Alexei Leonov; it looks really interesting.

 

    According to AI, the creators of "FAM" and "Star City" may have been influenced by Space and Apollo.  The great storytelling is obviously reminiscent of James Michener's multigenerational storytelling across decades.  Space chronicles the evolution of the American space program from its post-World War II origins using German rocket technology through the triumphant moon landings and the advent of the space shuttle. It weaves historical events with the personal and professional lives of fictitious engineers, politicians, astronauts, and scientists to explore the human cost and ambition behind space exploration. It's great historical fiction, like Michener's other works.  Apollo: The Race to the Moon is a very thorough and exhaustively researched history of the Apollo program.  I haven't read American Moonshot, but Douglas Brinkley is a very credible historian, so it's probably worth a look.

    The tv series do a fantastic job of putting women front and center in the space story -  obviously a heavy part of the alternate history storytelling.  Fortunately, historians and authors have begun to document their true history in recent years.  I've read The Astronaut Wives Club and Hidden Figures and both have been adapted for the screen.  Hidden Figures is the story of the "computers," the black women behind the scenes who did the math calculations that made space travel possible.  The Astronaut Wives Club goes behind the public facade that the early astronauts' wives were forced to maintain.  The rules and regulations of being an astronaut's wife were staggering, as they were called on to present a "perfect" all-American wife, mother, and family image at all times.  Behind the scenes, however, the program generated phenomenal stress for them and their families.  The Mercury 13 tells the story of the first class of women astronaut candidates, recruited in 1961 to be the first American women in space, but it took another 20 years before Sally Ride actually became the first.  

    These are three biographies of the men of the Apollo Program.  I haven't read any, but I know that I definitely won't be reading First Man ever.  I tried watching the movie adaptation and came to the conclusion that Neil Armstrong was the most boring and uninteresting historic figure in the history of the world.

    Finally:  I was in high school when the book and movie adaptation The Right Stuff  by Tom Wolfe came out, and both blew me away.  The book is a masterpiece is a work of narrative nonfiction, a heavily researched historical account documenting U.S. experimental test pilots and the Mercury Seven astronauts during the early days of the American space program. The film is a visual epic, one of my favorite movies ever.  Watching "FAM"  reminds me so much of "The Right Stuff" movie, and "Star City" reminds me of the fantastic HBO series "Chernobyl."

"The Right Stuff"

"Chernobyl"

Bonus:  If you're inspired to read some more Space Race related alternate history, here are a few Chatgpt-recommended titles.

 

• The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
• The Premise: A massive meteorite strikes the Earth in 1952, triggering a catastrophic climate shift that threatens to make the planet uninhabitable.
• The Space Race: Humanity is forced to rapidly accelerate its space program to colonize space and save the human race. The story follows Elma York—a brilliant mathematician and pilot—as she fights against mid-century sexism to become an astronaut. 
• Voyage by Stephen Baxter
• The Premise: In an alternate 1966, John F. Kennedy survives his assassination attempt in Dallas (though he is left using a wheelchair).
• The Space Race: Deeply motivated to finish what he started, President Kennedy throws America's political and financial weight behind a crewed landing on Mars instead of stopping at the Moon, reshaping NASA and the geopolitical landscape through the 1970s and 1980s. 
• A History of What Comes Next by Sylvain Neuvel
• The Premise: A secret, high-stakes alternate history spanning millennia. It posits that a hidden line of mothers and daughters have worked for centuries to push humanity off Earth to ensure our survival.
• The Space Race: The narrative moves into the mid-20th century, closely intertwined with the German rocket development program at Peenemünde and the early American space program, blending real historical figures (like Wernher von Braun) with a shadowy sci-fi conspiracy. 
• The Tranquility Alternative by Allen Steele
• The Premise: The U.S. space program begins much earlier—kicking off in 1944 using captured German rocket technology—leading to a crewed Moon landing by 1960.
• The Space Race: By the early 21st century, the lunar base (Tranquility) is operational, but the space program faces political budget cuts, public apathy, and a corporate/military plot to commercialize the Moon with nuclear armaments.