How 'For All Mankind' evolved from 'The Right Stuff' into 'The Expanse'

FOR ALL MANKIND SEASON FIVE SPOILERS AHEAD! The death of Ed Baldwin in "Home", the third episode of "For All Mankind"'s fifth season, was a symbolic moment for the Apple TV show. Yes, Margo Madison, Danielle Poole, and (albeit played by a different actor) Aleida Rosales still survive from the show's first season, but Baldwin was the last of the original Apollo astronauts standing. For a series that started out looking like " Apollo 13 ": The TV Show, that's a big deal. "For All Mankind"'s brilliant debut season was a beautifully realized period piece, a sun-drenched trip to the late-'60s populated by jock-like pilots driving fast convertibles and even faster Saturn V rockets. Casual viewers could almost have believed it was a " First Man "-style re-enactment of NASA's 1969 moonshot, were it not for the fact that, in "For All Mankind"'s alternative timeline of the late 20th century, the USSR got there first. Article continues below (Image credit: Apple TV) Fast forward to Baldwin's deathbed 40-plus years later — with actor Joel Kinnaman now buried under layers of prosthetics to transform him into an octogenarian — and the Solar System is a very different place. In this parallel 2012, the (fictional) Apollo astronaut's final resting place is the surface of Mars, where hundreds of people (families included) have now made the thriving Happy Valley base their permanent home. …