Characters / For All Mankind

Currently under construction. Of course there are numerous characters. Beware unmarked spoilers as only the events of the latest season will feature spoiler tags.

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Astronauts

Fictional

Ed Baldwin

Played by: Joel Kinnaman

The commander of Apollo 10, Apollo 15 and Apollo 22 missions to the moon. In Season 2 he becomes the head of the Astronaut Office after Deke's death and eventually leads the first Pathfinder shuttle mission.

• Ace Pilot: An accomplished fighter pilot and a veteran of the Korean War. This translates quite well to his astronaut career.
  • Demonstrated when he's flying a simulated Space Shuttle and fog forces him and his crew to land using faulty instruments. He gets his 2IC to list what to do (relying on the faulty computer), then abruptly shifts the joystick to a hard right then back again after a few seconds. The fog lifts to reveal that they're lined up dead centre on the runway.
• The Aloner: After Gordo and Danielle are evacuated from the Moon, he's left to run Jamestown Base on his own for several weeks.
• Anger Born of Worry: He flips out when Kelly announces she wants to join the Navy.
• Beard of Sorrow: He sports one following the Time Skip to season 4, reflecting the trauma of the previous season.
• Berserk Button: Challenging his authority is a very good way to piss him off.
• The Captain: Becomes promoted to Captain in the US Navy towards the end of Season 1 due to choosing not to abandon Jamestown to return to Earth with Gordo and Dani and hold down the fort until Apollo 24 relieves him.
• Four-Star Badass: Not quite four-star, but he does get promoted to Rear Admiral, Lower Half in the US Navy in between season 1 and 2.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Ed can be abrasive and controlling at times, particularly when he thinks someone is undermining his authority, but when push comes to shove he proves to be a good guy.
• I Coulda Been a Contender!:
  • In the early episodes, he grapples with the fact that he could have been the first man on the moon during Apollo 10. He eventually comes to term with the fact that attempting it likely would have gotten himself and Gordo killed, and that as commander he had to put the safety of his crew first, regardless of personal feelings or desires.
  • Happens again, even worse, in season 3 when Molly assigns him to command the first mission to Mars, only for Margo to overrule her and assign Danielle instead. This time, he's sufficiently pissed that he leaves NASA and joins up with Helios Aerospace's mission instead.
  • And then things get even worse when he ends up being in position for becoming the first human on Mars with only seconds to spare, only to have a flashback to Apollo 10 and decide to abort back to orbit literally at the last moment, willingly forfeiting first place to the Sojourner crew rather than risk his own through a potentially suicidal landing under incredibly dangerous conditions.
• Mid-Life Crisis Car: He already owned the car but hadn't driven his Corvette for nine years before he decided to "get back in the game".
• My Greatest Failure:
  • After Shane's death, he feels incredibly guilty because he wasn't there for his wife and son during their time of need, and he swears to never leave his family again.
  • This actually gets one-upped in season 3, when his mishandling of Danny Stevens's spiral into drug addiction results in four people getting killed in an accident, Danny himself committing suicide in the aftermath, and the rest of the Mars mission being stranded in Happy Valley for two years. He's still grappling with his guilt eight years later.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: He's a stand-in for Thomas P. Stafford, the actual commander of Apollo 10.
• Not So Stoic: In the season two finale, Ed's stoic exterior cracks and he openly cries at Gordo and Tracy's funeral.
• Perilous Old Fool: In season 4 he is an old man with PTSD and neurological issues that include an uncontrollable shaking of his hand. Yet he still insists on flying missions as an astronaut, including ones that require the pilot to have very precise control of the spacecraft. He gets away with it — at first — because he is a Living Legend and no one wants to go against him, but once Palmer sees it and reports it to Danielle, she grounds him and relives him of duty.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: When he drunkenly tells a reporter that "NASA lost its balls," Ed gets reassigned to Apollo Applications, an important but ultimately dead-end desk job at Houston which is outright compared to Siberia. It doesn't last.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red to Danielle's blue. While Danielle is a level-headed team player who follows the rules (for the most part), Ed is more of a risk-taker and has a very autocratic command style, which makes sense given that he's a former test pilot and a veteran of the Korean War. This contrast becomes a problem in season 3, when Margo and Molly peg them as the final two candidates for commanding the Mars mission — Margo favors Danielle's command style, while Molly prefers Ed's.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Famous!: By season 4 Ed is a Living Legend and he uses that status to keep working as an astronaut despite being past retirement age and not able to pass a serious medical exam. No one in NASA wants to risk the public backlash of being accused of mistreating one of Earth's biggest heroes.
• Take a Third Option: In the season 2 finale, Ed — faced with either shooting down Buran or letting the Soviets shoot down Sea Dragon 17, either of which could result in World War III on Earth — opts to destroy the Sea Dragon himself, ending the stalemate with no loss of life. The incident is subsequently covered up as a mechanical failure on Sea Dragon's part.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: He wears one so often it's practically his default expression. Justified in that as a Navy test pilot and astronaut, he's trained to be The Stoic.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: He's become far more abrasive and cynical by season 4, stemming from guilt over bringing Danny to Mars when he wasn't ready, which resulted in three people being killed; Danny's subsequent suicide after being exiled to the North Korean capsule; grief over Karen's death in the JSC bombing; and finally Ed's own declining health, which will ground him for good once it becomes known.
• What You Are in the Dark: Mikhail, the Soviet cosmonaut who is his, ahem, involuntary guest for a time calls his bluff by suggesting he should kill him, but it shows that Ed's moral compass overall points in the right direction.

Gordan "Gordo" Stevens

Played by: Michael Dorman

• Acquainted with Emergency Services: The Houston Police Department had been aware of "Good-Time Gordo" for one reason or another.
• The Alcoholic: Following his mental breakdown during the Apollo 22 mission and Tracy divorcing him, Gordo falls into a state of depression and develops a drinking problem. He manages to become sober again when Ed assigns him to astronaut duty again after nearly a decade of being on Earth.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: The marriage between him and Tracy is rocky even while it lasts, but both during their marriage and after their divorce we get moments that show they genuinely care for each other. In the season two finale, they tell each other "I love you" before their fateful moonwalk. After making it back to the airlock, they lie down and die in each other's arms.
• Bold Explorer: Gordo lives to boldly go where no man has gone before. Needless to say, he doesn't take being confined to Jamestown during Apollo 22 very well.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Subverted and played straight. While he is way too fond of ethanol (like many men of his generation) his most depressed moment in season 1 is probably when he's sitting at The Outpost, stone cold sober, drinking Ginger Ale.
• Formerly Fit: He's become quite chubby by Season 2 due to a combination of depression and no longer being active duty. He manages to shake off most of it after training for his return to the moon.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: This is what happens to him during Apollo 22. At one point he nearly removes his helmet during a moonwalk before Ed tackles him and talks him back to his senses. Gordo gets better, but only years later.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Sacrifices his life alongside Tracy's to get the Jamestown nuclear reactor's coolant loop back online, in the process exposing themselves to hard vacuum for at least 20 seconds, resulting in severe injuries and death not long after the two make it back inside.
• Hidden Depths: At first glance, Gordo is no more than a stereotypical, carefree flyboy—unfaithful, drunk, and frequently an asshole. But he attended Northwestern University, has a fondness for the Classics (particularly Plutarch), and was genuinely disturbed by the violence done to the protesters at the 1968 Democratic Convention. Character Development and therapy make his depths less hidden.
• Ironic Nickname: "Gordo" means "fat" in Spanish. It stops being ironic in season 2, as by 1983 he's genuinely chubby.
• Miles Gloriosus: Played with. The circumstances force him to maintain for a decade a false story of how he "saved" Danielle and he feels like shit whenever asked to tell someone how he's an all-American hero rescuing a Damsel in Distress. Part of his alcoholism is clearly tied with having to cope with it.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Based in part on real-life astronaut Gordo Cooper, he also stands in for Gene Cernan on the crew of Apollo 10.
• Porn Stache: Grows a period fashion-appropriate one in between Season 1 and 2.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Or in this case, shell-shocked astronaut. Years after the Apollo 22 mission, Gordo is still having nightmares and flashbacks about it.
• Took a Level in Kindness: He starts the series as selfish jerk (albeit one who clearly loves his family and friends) but undergoes Character Development and by the end of season one, he turns into a really nice guy.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: Michael Dorman does not speak his natural Kiwi accent in character, but it is unclear which accent besides "American" (and then not the generic "newscaster" one) he is going for - especially with the tense oral posture that often makes it sound like he pronounces everything through clenched teeth.

Molly Cobb

Played by: Sonya Walger

• Back for the Dead: After being absent for half of Season Three, Molly returns in the season's final episode — and dies in the aftermath of the JSC bombing.
• Brutal Honesty: When the rest of the female ASCANs hit the Outpost after her good friend Patty's funeral, they're still shocked and sad, but Molly's blunt assessment of the accident is that Patty "screwed the pooch" because she followed the wrong instinct.^note Having flown helicopters rather than jets, Patty wasn't used to the idea of ejecting and instead kept trying to correct after it was too late. When she's in a position to offer Karen career advice years later, Molly tells her that history is made by "selfish pricks" like herself and Ed Baldwin who ignore the strain their dangerous careers put on their loved ones.
• Camp Straight: One of the fairly rare distaff versions, a "butch straight" if you will. She avoids a lot of the features that code for femininity in the period, and there are apparently rumors that she's a lesbian — but she turns out to be happily married to a man.
• Career-Ending Injury: The Normal Tension Glaucoma she develops in Season 2 effectively ends her chances of ever going back into space as she'll slowly lose her eyesight completely.
• Fire-Forged Friendship: She does not like "astro-wife" Tracy Stevens one bit at first. But it turns out that going against orders to save your life earns you respect even from someone as gruff as Molly Cobb.
• Happily Married: She and Wayne are the healthiest couple depicted on-screen throughout the first two seasons.
• Hiding the Handicap: Molly takes great pains to keep secret that she's slowly going blind after being exposed to radiation from a solar flare.
• I Coulda Been a Contender!: One of the Mercury 13, she is initially very skeptical about the "Female Astronaut Program." Turns out she's right, but thanks to Deke Slayton's Refuge in Audacity she still gets to go to space.
• Killed Off for Real: She dies in the aftermath of the bombing of the Johnson Space Center while trying to evacuate other survivors.
• The Lad-ette: She's a hard-drinking, chain-smoking, haggard member of the abortive Mercury 13 program who's pressed back into service when Nixon demands an American woman on the moon. Deke has to fight for her to be included as the government wants someone more attractive to get the job.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Did we mention yet that Molly and Wayne have that sort of dynamic?
• Military Maverick: Put Molly in a situation where she has clear orders to not do something. Guess what she does?
• Mistaken for Gay: With her gruff personality, her somewhat androgynous looks and her interest in stereotypical "boy things" both other characters and the audience at first get the impression she might be a lesbian. Turns out she is Happily Married to a man.
• Opposites Attract: Gruff, tough Molly is married to Wayne, a gentle hippie. The two of them deeply love each other.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Based on the real-life Mercury 13 member Jerrie Cobb, who gets an In Memoriam Shoutout at the end of "Prime Crew." Word of God also revealed that her clothing style is based in part on Amelia Earhart.
• Not in This for Your Revolution: Molly isn't interested in being a feminist icon or challenging gender roles, she just wants to fly. However, when she finally gets chosen to go into space, an angry lecture from Margo and the admiration of the other women at NASA change her attitude somewhat.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Molly Cobb tones down her acerbic nature after becoming the First American Woman in Space and realizing women look up to her.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Her relationship with Patty Doyle.

Tracy Stevens

Played by: Sarah Jones

• Ace Pilot: She becomes the trainer for piloting the LSAM and is the one to navigate it through the dark, narrow trench when the marines retake the mining site (while all of them hum "Ride of the Valkyries"). Even Bernitz, after going full Conspiracy Theorist, has nothing but good things to say about her skill.
• The Alcoholic: During her time on Jamestown she is shown frequently downing shots of pure or near-pure ethanol provided by Jamestown's chemist. After getting caught and being put on "probation" she manages to quit cold turkey.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Along with Gordo, she exposes herself to the hard vacuum outside Jamestown to help get the reactor coolant loop back online, a heroic act that ultimately proves fatal to both of them.
• Must Have Nicotine: Even on the moon, she finds it hard to go without a cigarette. Eventually, she resorts to smoking in a disused depressurization hatch and using its vacuum hose to cover up the smoke.
• Never a Self-Made Woman: Initially, her being part of the first batch of female ASCANs is dismissed as just angling for the potential press coverage of a "Space Couple." Gordo is the first to believe otherwise, and ultimately she proves the critics wrong.
• Professional Maiden Name: During her second marriage, she continues to go by "Stevens" because everybody still knows her by that name. Gordo, however, thinks it's because she still has feelings for him.
• Space Trucker: Her mission on the moon? Fly the Moonrines and other Americans to and from the places they need to go with the LSAM. Much glorious, very frontier.

Danielle Poole

Played by: Krys Marshall

The first African-American woman to work for NASA as an astronaut.

• Actually Pretty Funny: She and Kuznetsov crack up in "Stranger in a Strange Land" upon realizing that North Korea beat them to Mars, meaning that all of the realpolitik in the third season, and the tragic deaths that ensued, was completely pointless.
• Black and Nerdy: Of all the astronauts shown onscreen, she displays by far the vastest knowledge of classic "nerdy" interests. She also previously worked as a "computer" at NASA, which is a job that involves loads and loads of math.
• Daddy's Girl: Her father was a cargo pilot who taught her how to fly, and she still feels close to him whenever she is up in the air.
• Fire-Forged Friendship: She, Ed, and Gordo did not see eye to eye pre-Apollo 22. Turns out getting stuck on the moon and nearly going mad from isolation either turns you into the closest-knit group of friends imaginable or to people who wish to kill each other for daring to breathe.
• Heroic Sacrifice: When Apollo 22 turns into the drawn-out nightmare and Gordo has a mental breakdown that nearly leads to his death she decides to spare her fellow astronaut the fate of being grounded and deliberately breaks her own arm so that Gordo can be flown home with the cover story of escorting the injured Danielle.
• Good Stepmother: After remarrying in Season 3, she's become this to her new husband's son from her previous marriage.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: For nine years, she is publicly ridiculed as a failure for breaking her arm at Jamestown and is used as an example why black and/or female astronauts can't cut it, even after Ellen points out that accidents can happen anywhere (and it wasn't an accident). Even the Soviets seem to share that opinion, considering Radislav's reaction to her "shit happens" remark. Fortunately, her actions in the season 2 finale erase this stigma and she's Famed In-Story by the beginning of season 3.
• Pop-Cultured Badass: She has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of TV, particularly Star Trek: The Original Series.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue to Ed's red. While Ed is a Hot-Blooded risk-taker with a very autocratic command style, Danielle is a level-headed team player who follows the rules (for the most part) and does her best to diffuse tension among her crew. This contrast becomes a problem in season 3, when Margo and Molly peg them as the final two candidates for commanding the Mars mission — Margo favors Danielle's command style, while Molly prefers Ed's.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: During Apollo-Soyuz she goes ahead and violates orders from both Moscow and Houston to do the docking maneuver. It works, and averts World War III for good measure.
• Token Minority: When her case as a potential ASCAN is presented to Deke Slayton he dismissively says "We're not going to hire her just because she's black", precisely to avoid having her just for the sake of the token. Turns out, she is every bit as good an astronaut as her male or white colleagues.

Ellen Waverly Wilson

Played by: Jodi Balfour

One of the first female astronauts, who is forced to hide her sexuality if she wants to achieve her dream of getting to Mars.

• The Beard: Mutually, with Larry. Ellen is a lesbian, Larry is a gay man, and both of them are well aware of this and are good friends, while using the marriage to cover having intimate relationships with others.
• Determinator: She refuses to radio in for help during the desert survival course, knowing it is pass/fail and she can't fail.
• Everything but the Girl: She is head of NASA, first female President, a beloved public figure, got to command Jamestown (and could go back any time she chose to do so), but her One True Love dumped her. Twice.
• Happily Married: Despite that, however, she gets her happy ending and marries Pam between seasons 3 and 4.
• Life Saving Misfortune: She's supposed to go with Paine to Korea for a conference, but then receives word that her father had suffered a heart attack. Ellen goes to visit him, which saves her life when her flight, Korean Air Lines 007, is shot down by a Soviet fighter.
• Put on a Bus: By season 4 she's retired from politics (and the show) to live happily ever after with Pam.
• Secretly Wealthy: Her mother is New York old money, and her father started the very successful Cavalier Airlines. She only mentions it when Tracy nudges her into opening up.
• Up Through the Ranks: From an ASCAN who only makes it through a must-pass exercise due to Tracy's help to Commander of Jamestown, to Administrator of NASA, to President of the United States.

Kelly Baldwin

Played by: Cynthy Wu

Ed and Karen's adopted Vietnamese daughter, whom they adopted as part of the (real-life) Operation Babylift.

• Daddy's Girl: Idolises Ed to the point where she applied for Annapolis because she wanted to make him proud.
• Dating What Daddy Hates: Is in a relationship with Alexei, a Soviet cosmonaut, during the Mars mission. In "New Eden," Kelly asks Alexei not to reveal their relationship to Ed, or else he would throw him out of an airlock and Make It Look Like an Accident. Sadly, it was not to last, as Alexei dies of a subdural hematoma two episodes later.
• Happily Adopted: She's adopted by Ed and Karen, and beyond some natural curiosity about her birth family, she considers them her parents.
• Someone to Remember Him By: After Alexei dies offscreen in "The Sands of Ares," it is revealed later in the same episode that Kelly is pregnant with his child.
• The Xenophile: Her greatest desire is to discover and study extraterrestrial life.

Danny Stevens

Played by: Mason Thames (season one), Casey W Johnson (season two onwards)

The eldest son of Gordo and Tracy. He appears in a recurring role in season 1 as Shane Baldwin's best friend. He becomes a major supporting character in season 2 when he returns to Houston on break from the Naval Academy and gets a summer job working at the Outpost.

• Beard of Sorrow: Grows one in Season 4 due to both the strain of extended isolation in the North Korean pod and the crushing guilt for what his actions caused.
• Dies Wide Open: When Ed and Danielle find his corpse, his eyes remain wide open, eerily staring off over the Martian horizon.
• Driven to Suicide: While the rest of the Happy Valley astronauts return to Earth a year later, Danny is not among them. It's later revealed that he killed himself during his exile in the North Korean capsule by allowing the oxygen in his suit to run out.
• Dude, Not Funny!: He walks in while Nick is reenacting a scene from "Love in the Skies", pulls him aside, and lays into him by pressuring him to reenact Gordo and Tracy's death scene until Ed stops him.
• It's All My Fault: Reveals to Ed in "The Sands of Ares" that he blames himself for Shane's death, explaining that he was the one who instigated all the trouble they got up to as children and let Shane take all the blame, which eventually led to his getting hit by a car. Danny was so deeply troubled by this that he admits to Ed that all his accomplishments (joining the Navy, becoming an astronaut, etc) were his way of honouring Shane; to live the life Ed's son would have had he lived.
  • Then there's the soul-crushing guilt on his face later in the episode after he realises that his substance abuse had led to the deaths of three people, including one of his teammates.
• Recovered Addict: Had a drinking problem sometime after Season Two that he managed to kick by Season Three. Unfortunately, Danny relapses prior to the Mars mission, and later switches from booze to pills, with deadly consequences.
• The Resenter: Is deeply resentful of Ed for a number of reasons, up to and including trying to replace Gordo as a father figure and his marriage to Karen. Ed is none the wiser to this, however.
• Sanity Slippage: His time on Mars does not do wonders for his mental state and he becomes increasingly unhinged, eventually turning to drugs which only worsen this.
• Stalker with a Crush: In Season 3, he still has feelings for Karen, which manifest when he starts parking outside her house and watching the video messages she sends to Ed.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Was tasked with monitoring the drill bit while the Soviet-Helios team were drilling for water. Unfortunately for the team, Danny was hopped up on pills at the time, and as a result the drill bit exploded and caused a landslide, killing two astronauts (as well as a third who later succumbed to his injuries) and almost killing Ed.

Nick Corrado

Played by: Daniel David Stewart

A NASA astronaut at Jamestown in season 2 and a Helionaut in season 3.

• Ascended Fanboy: He tells Tracy that he was in high school when the Apollo 24/25 accident happened and her rescue of Molly is what inspired him to become an astronaut.
• Innocently Insensitive:
  • When giving Gordo a tour of the expanded Jamestown, he makes a comment about how Gordo must have been going crazy in the confined space of Jamestown's original configuration. He doesn't know that that's exactly what happened to Gordo, and the pained look on Gordo's face shows that it's definitely still a sore spot for him.
  • While he obviously holds Gordo and Tracy in high regard, he doesn't realize that quoting from Love in the Skies, the in-universe biopic about their relationship, is a painful reminder for Danny about the loss of his parents.
• Killed Off for Real: The landslide on Mars caused by the drilling accident shatters the visor on his helmet and the exposure to the Martian atmosphere kills him.

Historical

Neil Armstrong

Played by: Jeff Branson

• Ace Pilot: Armstrong's piloting skills are attested when he manages to successfully take off in Eagle, especially at a canted angle that required him to slowly navigate into a Lunar ascent with only a limited supply of fuel they could use.
• Coming in Hot: Armstrong and Aldrin's landing is a lot harsher than it was in real life.
• Put on a Bus: Since he is not the First Man on the Moon in this timeline, he fades into the background with the rest of the historical astronauts.

Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin

Played by: Chris Agos

• Interservice Rivalry: He is Air Force, and he ribs Ed and Gordo for being "navy squids" while they rib him for being an "Air Force puke."

Michael Collins

Played by: Ryan Kennedy

• Death by Adaptation: Subverted. Despite having 2 million liters of fuel exploding from underneath him, Collins and his fellow Apollo 23 astronauts survive when the escape tower launches and carries the command module away, though they're all injured when the capsule lands on the beach instead of the ocean.
• I Choose to Stay: When Apollo 11 appears to crash, Collins makes it clear that he refuses to return to Earth alone. Fortunately, Armstrong and Aldrin reestablish communications shortly afterwards.

Sally Ride

Played by: Ellen Wroe

• The Conscience: Sally Ride is the only member of the Pathfinder crew with a non-military background^note she was a civilian physicist and is not shy about voicing her discomfort with the unexpected militarization of their mission. Even though Ed calls her bluff on shooting him, she reminds him that he, not NASA, has the final call in whatever choice he makes up there and that a piece of equipment is a lot less important than the lives that would be lost in a war.
• Deadpan Snarker: Unlike Piscotti, she isn't scared of Ed to be sarcastic to him.
• Historical Domain Character: Based on the real-life Astronaut Sally Ride.
• Historical Downgrade: Sally Ride was the first American woman in space, something that in the show had already been accomplished a decade earlier by Molly Cobb^note and, as revealed after her death, also the first LGBTQ astronaut, while in this timeline, it was Ellen. Then it's then subverted in the season 2 finale into:
• Historical Hero Upgrade: When her actions ultimately persuade Ed not to shoot down Buran and instead destroy Sea Dragon 17, preventing World War III from breaking out on Earth in the process meaning that even though she didn't become the first American woman in space as she did in real life, her actions ultimately saved millions of lives, which is something real-life Sally Ride never did.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: When it looks like Ed is going to fire Pathfinder's missiles on Buran, Sally pulls her gun on him.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Historically, Sally Ride was a part of the Rogers Commission that investigated the Challenger disaster and retired from NASA in 1987. It is unclear whether she took part in this universe's Rogers Commission investigation into the Jamestown attack or if she is retired as of season 3.
• You Wouldn't Shoot Me: Although she pulls her sidearm on Ed to stop him from firing on Buran, he doesn't believe that she would ever actually shoot him and pulls his own gun. Piscotty interrupts by reminding them that they're on a pressurized spacecraft so nobody should be shooting anyone.

The "Moonrines"

General Tropes

A Squad of US Marines stationed on the Jamestown base to enforce US claims to resources on the Moon.

• Semper Fi: All of them are members of the US Marine Corps.
• Space Marines: A hard sci-fi version. They are basically US marines in space suits with assault rifles painted white to better reflect the sun's heat while in the open and like IRL Marines their purpose seems to be rapid deployment on the moon to take and/or maintain control of strategically important locations.

Vance Paulson

Played by: Connor Tillman

The leader of the squad of US Marines stationed on Jamestown.

• Failed a Spot Check: Is unable to hear a Soviet soldier sneak up behind him in Jamestown's depressurized hallways and gets shot for his troubles.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Displays incredibly poor aim during his first marksmanship training session in a space suit on the Moon, missing not just the target but the big moon rock it was being propped up against.
• Mauve Shirt: Gets double-tapped by a Soviet "Spacenaz" after getting sneak attacked during their failed counterattack against the Soviets.

Helena Webster

Played by: Michaela Conlin

A member of Paulson's squad of Marines on the Moon.

• Action Girl: Part of the job requirement. She manages to also do much better against the Soviets than the rest of her squad during the Soviet takeover of Jamestown, being the only one left unscathed after the squad is ambushed by a Soviet soldier with Paulson killed and Lopez injured, leaving her to hold off the rest of the Soviets by herself when they inevitably make their move.
• My God, What Have I Done?: She's obviously filled with remorse for her deadly mistake in opening fire.
• The Smurfette Principle: Is the only female Marine on the squad.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Shooting one of the cosmonauts after being mistakenly led to believe that he was going for a gun as opposed to a translation card, results in the Soviets attacking Jamestown to retrieve him. This leads to the deaths of several Jamestown personnel, massive damage to the base, a near-nuclear meltdown that requires a Heroic Sacrifice to stop, and the two superpowers coming to the brink of nuclear war.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Astronaut Gary Piscotty.

Steve Lopez

Played by: Chris Cortez

A member of Paulson's squad.

• Dropped a Bridge on Him: The "1989" tie-in video explains that Lopez was killed when Pathfinder decompressed.
• Mauve Shirt: Subverted. After getting ambushed and shot in the vacuum of Jamestown's depressurized hallways it seems for a second as if he's going to die but Helena manages to bring him back into a pressurized area in time.
• Rank Up: He is promoted to lieutenant colonel before he is killed in 1989 aboard Pathfinder.

Charles Bernitz

Played by: Zac Titus

A member of Paulson's squad who later becomes an anti-NASA conspiracy theorist in the 1990s.

• Allohistorical Allusion: Much like Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, Charles is a former servicemember who had served his country with distinction.
• Butt-Monkey: Is given the title of "Linus" on Jamestown as the base's newest arrival and is called out for not being up to the task of being the Moonrines' LSAM pilot.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Starts promoting conspiracy theories about the Jamestown incident in the 1990s.
• Face–Heel Turn: Goes from serving his country as a Marine to a terrorist plotting an attack against NASA.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: He's right that the official story about the near-meltdown in Jamestown is fishy (because the military secretly added another one and didn't connect it to the backup coolant system) but this conviction is based mostly on Paulson being shot in the back. Bernitz doesn't want to believe Paulson would die that way, but the audience knows that's exactly what happened.
• Space Trucker: He was supposed to perform this role for the Moonrines but wasn't very good in the LSAM, forcing Tracy to take on the pilot role for them.
• Suicide Attack: After realizing Jimmy has escaped and Karen trying to alert security, Charles sets off the bomb while standing next to it.

NASA Administrators and Support Staff

Thomas Paine

Played by: Dan Donohue

The NASA Administrator under Presidents Nixon and Reagan.

• Death by Adaptation: He is killed on Korean Air Lines Flight 007. The real Thomas Paine died of cancer in 1992.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Thomas Paine appears to be a political stooge forced on NASA whenever the Republicans are in power, but he reveals to Ellen that he loves space and the space program, having fought to become director when Nixon was president and using backroom deals to get NASA the funding it needs until it can become financially independent. He also tells Margo that he wants the Apollo-Soyuz Mission to happen because it will go down in history.

Harold Weisner

Played by: Wallace Langham

The NASA Administrator under President Ted Kennedy.

• The Watson: Maybe it is due to him being a political appointee who never shows much expertise on space, but he constantly asks people in NASA questions basically everyone in the building can answer in their sleep for the sake of viewers who might not be familiar with stuff like orbital mechanics.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: When Margo gets von Braun's findings into Apollo 23's destruction, Weisner tries to bury the report, just as von Braun said he would.

Wernher von Braun

Played by: Colm Feore

The director of the Apollo Program.

• Affably Evil: Despite being an unapologetic former Nazi, he’s consistently well-mannered and his fatherly affection for Margo is sincere.
• Broken Pedestal: He is initially a beloved and respected figure in America's space program. But when the Soviets land first on the Moon, the full extent of his Nazi past is exposed, forcing him to resign in disgrace. This also results in Margo cutting off contact with him, which seems to bother him far more. However, this is also mildly downplayed on NASA's part, since he is later called in to write up an accounting of why Apollo 23 blew up, and no one questions his expertise when he does so.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Von Braun may have worked for the Nazis, but his analysis of the fallout of the Apollo 23 explosion being due to pork barrel spending is spot on. Margo may not like it, but when he is proven correct, she even quotes his line about it: every system is corrupt.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Unlike in real life, von Braun's Nazi past catches up with him and costs him his position at NASA.
• Noble Demon: The show pulls no punches about von Braun's culpability in the Nazis' atrocities, but he's sincerely devoted to advancing the American space program and keeping it as safe as possible. If he'd still been around, there's no way the destruction of Apollo 23 would have happened. He also seems sincerely outraged over the potential of turning space into a warzone.
• Never My Fault: He runs through every excuse he can think of when confronted by his Nazi past, but Congressman Sandman has counterarguments prepared for each one. The closest he gets to admitting the truth is when he tells Margo that "progress is never free." Later, he does also freely acknowledge that his own misdeeds are in no way comparable to Margo's father's involvement in the Manhattan Project, with the unspoken implication that what her father did was much more forgivable (indeed, von Braun had already argued that, while dropping Fat Man on Nagasaki may have killed around a hundred thousand people, it saved millions more by preventing the need to invade Japan).
• Parental Substitute: To Margo, whose father was distant at best. He tutored her in math, and either he or his wife taught her how to play piano. He also serves effectively as a messenger from beyond the grave to deliver messages that her father was too wracked with guilt (due to his involvement in the Manhattan Project) to deliver himself.
• Reluctant Mad Scientist: Before the hearing, people are vaguely aware of von Braun's past but he portrays himself as someone who was forced to give his Aggregat-4 rocket to the Wehrmacht, who then turned it into the V-2. But as Congressman Sandman shows, you don't become an SS member and have your photo taken with the Führer if you're "reluctant."
• Those Wacky Nazis: He was responsible for Nazi Germany's V-2 weapons program and did nothing to stop the systematic torture and killing of the workers at his factory. More people died building the V-2 than in their actual use on London.

Deke Slayton

Played by: Chris Bauer

"I decide who goes up and who doesn't."

One of the original Mercury 7 astronauts and Chief of the Astronaut Office.

• Da Chief: He's head of the Astronaut Office and in this role, ultimately decides who goes into space on which mission.
• Death by Adaptation: He dies in orbit around the Moon on Apollo 24. In real life, Slayton died from a brain tumor in 1993.
• A Father to His Men: And his women too. Deke is fiercely protective of the men and women serving under him.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He is opposed to female astronauts and he mercilessly culls the candidates from the program, though he is insistent that if he is forced to train female astronauts, he will make sure that they are just as well-trained as any of their male counterparts and is dismissive of the idea of simply putting an attractive woman in a space suit as a publicity stunt. Once the remaining women have proven themselves, he will not scrap the program just because the political winds have shifted. He risks his career to give them a chance to succeed or fail on their own merits.
• Noble Bigot: A man of his era, he has his own problems regarding race, gender and sexual orientation. Doesn't stop him from treating all ASCANs the same and respecting them based on their merits, not who they are. When Ellen comes out to him, he is shocked and angry, but later apologizes and advises her to stay closeted because he fears people like him will only ever see her sexuality if she comes out.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: He is the ranking astronaut and decides the flight assignments. When being told that Nixon wants to put an American woman in space, he goes ahead and treats the women no differently than any other applicant. If there are going to be female astronauts, they're going to be just as good as any male astronaut.
• Refuge in Audacity: After being told that Nixon wants to axe the female astronaut applicants, Deke holds a live press conference announcing the new astronauts to the world public. Not even Tricky Dick and Kissinger together could undo that.

Gene Kranz

Played by: Eric Ladin

Flight Director at Johnson Space Center.

• Anyone Can Die: Being such an iconic and legendary NASA figure, it is a huge shock when he is suddenly killed in the explosion.
• Death by Adaptation: He is killed when Apollo 23 explodes on the launch pad. In real life, Kranz is still alive as of August 2022.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: While checking on Apollo 23, he starts to ask if the cafeteria at Kennedy Space Center still makes double cheeseburgers. At that moment, the rocket explodes.
• Rank Up: He's promoted to director of the Johnson Space Center prior to the launch of Apollo 23. Sadly, he's killed when the rocket explodes.
• Rousing Speech: He gives one prior to the launch of Apollo 11, declaring that if the landing is successful, it means America is still in the race to lunar colonization, Mars, Saturn, and the rest of the galaxy. He even works in his famous "failure is not an option" quote from the film Apollo 13.

Margo Madison

Played by: Wrenn Schmidt

The first woman to serve as a flight controller.

• Be Careful What You Wish For:
  • She blackmails Harold Weisner to get the promotion she deserves. She ends up being the flight director on Apollo 24.
  • She wants to regain site 357/Bravo more than anything; unfortunately, the only method put forward is arming marines and sending them to the Moon, which Margo opposes.
• Calling the Old Man Out: She calls out Wernher von Braun for his past crimes and his manipulation of her, and she uses him as a proxy to call out her dead neglectful father.
• Easily Forgiven: She gives the order for Apollo 25 to abandon Molly to her death and save themselves. After they defy her and Molly is rescued, Molly refuses to even hear her apology, tells her she did the right thing, and points out she gave the same order.
• Genius Sweet Tooth: She munches on Tootsie Rolls while working through complex problems at NASA.
• Good with Numbers: Naturally for someone working at NASA, but she often finds maths problems to get easier when she gets a chance to unwind through music.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Margo is completely correct in criticizing Aleida for accusing a co-worker without evidence and for wasting her time trying to find out who the traitor is, as that is not her job. However, the viewer knows that Margo has no altruistic reason for saying this, as she is actually the traitor.
• Married to the Job: To the extent that she sleeps in her office and has developed a system allowing her to get ready in minutes without anyone the wiser. She dismisses any suggestion she find a boyfriend or might have children as "not in the cards" for her.
• Master-Apprentice Chain: She was taken under von Braun's wing as a child, and in turn becomes a mentor to Aleida Rosales.
• My Greatest Failure: Rejecting Aleida when she asked to stay with her. Nine years later, the mere sight of Aleida's name visibly distresses her, and she admits to her guilt when Aleida confronts her.
• Never a Self-Made Woman: She is put down as "Wernher's girl" or "Eva von Braun" regardless of her actual talent.
• Oh, Crap!: Margo has a big one when Aleida says she found out who the traitor is. She is relieved however when she discovers that Aleida is following the wrong lead.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Aleida finally becomes suspicious of Margo when she suggests that Aleida take some time off to try to forget about the traitor's investigation. Aleida even asks in disbelief since when Margo offers anyone a break.
• Perpetual Frowner: When told that "even Margo is smiling," Molly demands someone take a picture. Margo's awkward smile falls right off her face.
• Rank Up: She is promoted several times throughout the series.
  • Early in season 1, she is an engineer assisting guidance officer Bill Strausser. She is then promoted to serve as as a flight dynamics officer.
  • Following the explosion of Apollo 23, she uses von Braun's report that exposes the real cause of the explosion to blackmail Administrator Weisner into making her a flight director.
  • In season 2, she's been promoted to the Director of the Johnson Space Center.
• Southern-Fried Genius: Grew up in Alabama, with the accent to show for it, and she's one of the smartest people at NASA.
• Technical Pacifist: Margo has no problem with the armed forces on their own, but she opposes the militarization of space, including sending marines to Jamestown, arming space shuttles, and putting nuclear weapons on the Moon. All her worst fears come true by the end of Season 2.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In Season 3, Margo emotionally manipulates Aleida in her attempts to get her to drop the investigation into who is leaking NASA information. To accomplish this, Margo uses Aleida's own past against her (remembering when her father was falsely accused of being a spy) and even threatening to suspend her.

Aleida Rosales

Played by: Olivia Trujillo (season 1), Coral Pena (season 2)

An undocumented Mexican immigrant who arrived as a child and finds her way to work at NASA

• Child Prodigy: As a kid she's mastered logarithms that the adult Margo considers challenging, and she knows she wants to build rockets.
• "Eureka!" Moment: It's implied that Aleida finally realizes that Margo leaked the engine plans when she leaves her office, glancing back at a portrait of her with a shattered expression.
• Insufferable Genius: She has been fired from every engineering job she ever had due to her combative personality, which led her to set fires in people's offices, among other things. The same people who fired her describe her as the most talented engineer they've ever met.
• Master-Apprentice Chain: She is taken under Margo's wing just as von Braun had taken Margo under his.
• Rank Up: In 1994, she is flight director at JSC.
• Pyromaniac: As a child, she has a disturbing fascination with burning things. It ends up getting her kicked out of her university when she sets fire to a Jerkass teacher's office.
• Took a Level in Cynic: In Season 2. Her father getting deported and Margo refusing to take her in caused her to harden from a Shrinking Violet with a promising future in engineering to a bitter young woman living in a trailer park. She gets better eventually.
• Took a Level in Kindness: After she humiliates Bill into quitting and is nearly fired herself, she goes to his house where she sincerely apologizes and tells him a shameful story from her own past to make amends. Thereafter, Aleida and Bill share almost every scene together, and he allows her to radio Apollo-Soyuz for permission to dock.

Bill Strausser

Played by: Noah Harpster

GUIDO in mission control.

• Brain Drain: In Season 3, he leaves NASA to work at Helios.
• Embarrassing Nickname: "Peanut." He peed his pants because he refused to leave his console for twenty-three hours during Gemini 8. The nickname still haunts him nearly twenty years later.
• Platonic Life-Partners: After they reconcile, he and Aleida develop this relationship.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Fourteen years apart, he tells Margo and Aleida to "stay in their lane" when they exert themselves professionally. Neither do.
• What Measure Is a Mook?: After the Apollo 23 disaster, Bill rails against how little press coverage the death of twelve "grunts" receives compared to the Apollo 1.
• Rank Up: In Season 3, he's now a flight director for Helios.

General Nelson Bradford

Played by: John Marshall Jones

NASA's military liaison during the 1980s.

• General Ripper: Quoth General Bradford, "The only way to hold a piece of ground, on this world or any other world, is a man with a rifle." He repeatedly argues they should go on the offensive, claiming all Soviets (including Sergei, whose worst crime is being a bit of an Obstructive Bureaucrat) can't be trusted. He is also willing to risk letting dozens of Soviet civilians, engineers, and scientists die rather than alert them to the problems with Buran's O-ring.
• Rank Up: In season 3 he becomes the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the highest position in the US peace time armed forces.

Friends and Family

Karen Baldwin

Played by: Shantel VanSanten

• Absurdly Youthful Mother: By season two, Karen would likely be in her late forties at least. But Shantel VanSanten (the actress who plays Karen) looks at least a decade younger than that, even with makeup intended to make her look older than she did in season one.
• Anxiety Dreams: She initially claims she Cannot Dream, but later reveals to Wayne that she has Recurring Dreams that started when Ed was shot down in Korea of him getting eaten by a panther.
• Female Misogynist: She does not take the news of female astronauts entering training well at all. Not least because among them is fellow astronaut-wife Tracy Stevens. She is also somehow more angry that Molly is flying on Apollo 15 instead of the previously-considered Gordo than Ed is... In season 3 she finally admits that was envious of Tracy for being willing and able to make major changes in her life, which Karen herself wasn't able to do until after Shane's death.
• Killed Off for Real: She dies in the the bombing of the Johnson Space Center.
• Odd Friendship: She is a straight-laced housewife. By the end of the first season, her best friend is the sensitive stoner Wayne.
• Resign in Protest: She quits her job at Helios Aerospace after Dev's Glory Hounding result in three deaths in the NASA and Soviet crews. She eventually returns, but only on the condition that she gets a position with actual power behind it.
• Stepford Smiler: Karen always does what is expected of an astronaut's wife. It finally becomes too much when her son is rendered brain-dead and she ends up hiding in her bedroom rather than keep up her façade.
• What the Hell, Hero?: She is livid with Ed when he drunkenly spills his guts to a reporter because it breaks the "code" that pilots and astronauts pride themselves so much on, especially she (as an astronaut's wife) has to follow her own version of that code.

Marge Slayton

Played by: Rebecca Wisocky

Deke Slayton's wife.

• Put on a Bus: Vanishes from the show after Deke dies.
• Team Mom: Befitting her status as the wife of the Chief of the Astronaut Office, she has somewhat of a leadership role amongst the astronaut wives and takes a lead role in trying to help Karen through the pain of losing her son.

Pam Horton

Played by: Meghan Leathers

The bartender at the Outpost, she secretly dates Ellen Waverly

• All Lesbians Want Kids: Averted. Her partner Elise wants them, but Pam very much doesn't.
• Cruel to Be Kind: Possibly why she dumps Ellen the second time after hearing Lee Atwater describe her as possible Republican politician material. She knows their relationship would get in the way of Ellen's dream of reaching Mars and wants her to pursue that instead.
• Happily Married: Between seasons 3 and 4, Pam and Ellen get married.
• The Bartender: She tends bar at the Outpost, the favorite watering hole for the Apollo astronauts.

Larry Wilson

Played by: Nate Corddry

Ellen's husband, a member of NASA's mission control

• The Beard: Mutually, with Ellen. Larry is a gay man, Ellen is a lesbian, and both of them are well aware of this and are good friends, while using the marriage to cover having intimate relationships with others.
• Boomerang Bigot: In Season 3, he pushes Ellen to get closer with the evangelical wing of the Republican Party, who are notoriously anti-gay. When Will Tyler comes out on Mars, he does not show any intention of allowing him to stay in the military.
• The Movie Buff: He bonds with Ellen over their shared interest in movies.

Wayne Cobb

Played by: Lenny Jacobson

Molly's husband, an artist who designs concert posters for bands

• Anxiety Dreams: While Molly is on Apollo 15, he repeatedly dreams about finding her corpse on the Moon.
• Chekhov's Skill: He was a promising medical student before he deliberately got himself expelled, and his detailed knowledge of medicine comes into play when arguing with Molly about a questionable procedure.
• Happily Married: He loves Molly and Molly loves him. They only hit a snag once, when he is concerned that Molly will undergo a dangerous untried procedure in her desperation to fix her eyesight, and it is resolved within minutes of screentime - and the thing that nearly drove them apart was quite serious indeed.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: Certainly by the standards of the 1960s and 1970s. He is not afraid to talk about his feelings and is very happy to be a supportive husband to a wife with a big career. Molly seems to appreciate it as they are very happy together.
• Masculine Girl Feminine Guy: Molly is a tough as nails astronaut, he’s a sensitive artist.
• Nice Guy: He’s an easygoing and friendly man.
• Platonic Life-Partners: He and Karen have become this by the end of Season 1.
• The Stoner: He is very fond of the ole reefer cigar which he also uses as a coping mechanism during Molly's time in space
• Understanding Boyfriend: Wayne's only concern about his wife's high-status, dangerous job that requires her to leave him and spend days at a time in a confined space with other men is that she could die on the job, and he supports her enough to pretend that it doesn't bother him.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Formerly. He got himself expelled from medical school and disowned by his father, and after that, considers himself free.

Shane Baldwin

Played by: Teddy Blum, Tait Blum

• Death of a Child: He's hit by a car while riding his bike and pronounced brain-dead. He later dies.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He has only a relatively minor amount of screen time in season 1, but his death has major impacts on the emotional states of multiple characters. Both of his parents as well as Danny never truly get over his death. Even by Season 4 (which takes place almost thirty years after Shane died), it's shown that Shane's death and Ed's guilt over it and his treatment of Shane while he was alive still weighs heavily and deeply on Ed. In addition, the Baldwins would not have adopted Kelly if Shane had not died and though Kelly loves her parents (as they do her), it's clear that the emotional burden of being a replacement child has been with her most of her life.

Octavio Rosales

Played by: Aruto Del Puerto

Aleida's father, who took her to the United States.

• Ethnic Menial Labor: He works as a janitor at Johnson Space Center.
• Good Parents: He wants to create a better life for his daughter, and helps inspire her to eventually work at NASA.
• Mistaken for Spies: He takes home discarded schematics and plans for Aleida to help inspire her. Unfortunately, after Apollo 23 explodes, NASA becomes convinced that there is a data leak and he is interrogated under the suspicion that he's a Soviet spy.
• Put on a Bus: His undocumented status is revealed to NASA and he is deported by the end of Season 1. He returns in Season 3, when Aleida is working as flight director and has presumably pulled some strings.
• Scatterbrained Senior: In Season 3, when he's now living with Aleida's family, it's becoming clear that he is suffering from the early signs of Alzheimer's. He makes a dinner with cheese even though Victor can't eat it, he becomes obsessed with finding his watch while on the phone with Aleida, and he is increasingly forgetful and paranoid. After the Time Skip, it's confirmed that he's now in assisted living, and when he tries to comfort Aleida, he calls her by his late wife's name.

Jimmy Stevens

Played by: William Lee Holler (Season 1), Zakary Risinger (1x10), David Chandler (Season 2-3)

The younger son of Gordo and Tracy Stevens, and brother of Danny Stevens.

• Broken Pedestal: His parents' deaths leads Jimmy to become disillusioned with NASA and involved with a group of conspiracy theorists.
• Everyone Has Standards: He grows to hate NASA after his parents die on the moon, but he is clearly very uncomfortable with some of the lengths his conspiracy theorist friends are willing to go to and is utterly horrified when they ultimately bomb NASA. The fact that they deliberately kept him in the dark about their true plan indicates that they actually knew he wouldn't want to go through with it.
• My God, What Have I Done?: He is horrified in the aftermath of the JSC bombing.
• Took A Level In Cynicism: He's initially supportive of his parents' careers as astronauts, but in the years following their deaths he becomes jaded and cynical, developing a deep grudge against NASA, whom he feels is responsible. This makes it easy for a group of anti-NASA conspiracy theorists to manipulate him into helping them seek "justice" against the organisation.

Sunny Hall

Played by: Taylor Dearden

An anti-NASA conspiracy theorist who Jimmy Steves becomes involved with.

• Uncertain Doom: She's last seen running away before Charles sets off the bomb, leaving it unclear if she was caught in the explosion or if she was apprehended afterwards. The season 3 to season 4 newsreel reveals that she was convicted for her role in the bombing and was facing the death penalty.

Politicians

Richard Nixon

The 37th President of the United States from 1969 to 1973.

• Corrupt Politician: He was called "Tricky Dicky" for a reason. After Apollo 11, he tries to increasingly micromanage the space program. Ultimately, he tries to bug the Democratic headquarters during the 1972 election, but is exposed and loses.
• Invisible President: He appears through stock footage, tape recordings, and telephone calls.
• Laser-Guided Karma: The Watergate break-in occurs, but this time, Nixon loses reelection to Ted Kennedy. Kennedy offers to pardon, because he doesn't believe in prosecuting political rivals, but Nixon refuses to accept it.

Ted Kennedy

The 38th President of the United States from 1973 to 1977.

• Allohistorical Allusion:
  • When the Soviets land on the moon, Kennedy cancels a cocktail party at Chappaquiddick so he could be in Washington, averting the crash that killed Mary Jo Kopechne and permanently derailed his political ambitions.
  • Kennedy is also later accused of having an affair with Kopechne, then a White House staffer, an allusion to Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky.
• Corrupt Politician: He's well-meaning in his efforts to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, something that has yet to happen in real life, but Kennedy gives NASA contracts to various states in order to gain support. The result is a string of NASA disasters that includes the deaths of 12 pad workers and two astronauts, among them legendary NASA officials Gene Kranz and Deke Slayton. It's little wonder Kennedy ultimately loses re-election to Reagan.
• Invisible President: Like Nixon, Kennedy appears through photographs, tape recordings, and telephone calls.
• Our Presidents Are Different: President Scheming as the Corrupt Politician entry above would attest.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: He awards a prestigious NASA contract to Illinois in order to gain that state's support in the landmark Equal Rights Amendment. However, this results in a substandard component which ends up causing Apollo 23 to explode on the launch pad.

Ronald Reagan

The 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1985.

• Allohistorical Allusion: Reagan wins in 1976 when Ohio becomes too close to call and ultimately the Supreme Court rules in his favor, like the 2000 election in Florida.
• The Fundamentalist: He repeatedly tells the people at NASA that he's praying for them, and he blindsides Ellen during a phone call by asking her if she's a Christian.
• Invisible President: By the 1980s, video conferencing has started to take off, allowing Reagan to appear this way.

Gary Hart

The 40th President of the United States from 1985 to 1993.

• Alternate History:
  • Gary Hart did seek a presidential run in 1984 and narrowly lost to Walter Mondale. His campaign in 1988 was ended due to an extramarital affair. Here, he is the president for two terms after Reagan.
  • He beats evangelist Pat Robertson in the 1988 election.
  • He refuses to commit US troops following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, averting the Gulf War.
• Invisible President: He doesn't even appear in Season 3, as his term is winding down and there is focus on the 1992 election between Ellen and Bill Clinton.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: His administration saw the widespread shift from fossil fuels to fusion energy production. However, this did not include widespread retraining of those in the antiquated sectors, which leads to growing resentment among Americans and ultimately results in a domestic terrorist attack on the Johnson Space Center.

James Bragg

Played by: Randy Oglesby

Ellen's Vice President.

• The Fundamentalist: He's part of the evangelical Christian wing of the Republican Party.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: For Mike Pence, a staunchly conservative Christian governor who served as Vice President under Donald Trump.
• The Starscream: After Ellen's coming out, he tries to coerce her into stepping down so he can become President. He later runs an aggressive campaign against her in the 1996 election but loses, with Ellen replacing him with George H.W Bush.

Al Gore

The 42nd President of the United States after Ellen Wilson.

• Allohistorical Allusion: He wins the 2000 election against George H.W. Bush. The Wilson administration's handling of the Elián González case, in which Gore manages to arrange for him to stay in America, swings a number of Cuban votes in favor of Gore and thus wins him Florida.
• It's All About Me: When the Goldilocks asteroid is discovered, Gore makes a speech in which he claims credit for its discovery, not the M-7 Alliance, America, or even NASA.
• Tempting Fate: At the start of Season 4, Gore proclaims in a speech that, in light of the economic cooperation between America and the Soviet Union, the Cold War is now over. Not long afterwards, communist hardliners oust Gorbachev and make the USSR belligerent once more.

Soviets

General Tropes

• In Spite of a Nail: Gorbachev's reforms manage to revive the Soviet economy and causes it to live a decade past its collapse in reality. In Season 4, he's ousted by a group of communist hardliners in a coup.
• Paper Tiger: As the series progresses, it's becoming clear that the USSR is starting to lag behind the United States, to the point that they had to resort to espionage and blackmail in order to complete their Mars rocket. This is a reversal of what happened in real life, where America had to piggyback on Russian spacecraft after retiring the space shuttle.

Alexei Leonov

• Allohistorical Allusion: Leonov was indeed the man the Soviets would have put on the moon if they had been able to do so.
• Historical Badass Upgrade: From being the first man to perform an extravehicular activity to being the first man on the moon.

Mikhail Mikhailovich Vasiliev

Played by: Mark Ivanir

A Soviet cosmonaut who becomes Ed Baldwin's "guest" on Jamestown.

• Batman Gambit: He suggests to Ed that Murder Is the Best Solution which leads to Ed doing exactly not that.
• "Not So Different" Remark: He attempts to appeal to Ed as another family man and talks about how he nearly lost his daughter in infancy.
• Pet the Dog: Whether by order or opportunity, he bugs Jamestown for the USSR's benefit, but he didn't have to also help Ed Baldwin rescue Apollo 24—that was his own initiative.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: He calls out America, in the person of Ed Baldwin, for stomping around as the "good guy" cowboy when its hands are no cleaner than the USSR when it comes to invasions and war crimes and proves his point when he provokes Ed into punching him (tied up and helpless) twice.
• Stock Foreign Name: Annoyed with Ed addressing him by "Ivan", he gives his full name (including the patronymic) to Ed.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: He shows up at Jamestown's door saying that he doesn't have enough oxygen to get back to his own base. The next season reveals that he was carrying surveillance equipment and installed it in the light fixtures.

Sergei Orestovich Nikulov

Played by: Piotr Adamczyk

The Soviet engineer in charge of the Soyuz-Apollo mission.

• Completely Unnecessary Translator: He speaks English well enough to not need a translator. He still has one during the early contacts of Apollo-Soyuz
• First-Name Basis: He addresses his American counterpart as "Margo," and she (for the most part) calls him "Sergei." The one time she uses Last-Name Basis on him, she messes up—Russians use Firstname Patronym (i.e. "Sergei Orestovich") rather than Mister Lastname to indicate formality.
• Honey Trap: At the end of Season 2, it's revealed that he's being tasked by the KGB to recruit Margo, though he seems reluctant to do so.
• Insistent Terminology: It's Soyuz-Apollo, not Apollo-Soyuz, and they're cosmonauts, not astronauts.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: He only stumbles once while speaking English (with the somewhat obscure word "equidistant"), meaning he didn't need to refer to the Soviet translator earlier and only did to either confirm that Margo really did make a fairly risque joke at their first meeting or to stall for time while he thought of a response. Or both.
• Take a Third Option: Both the Soviets and Americans insist that their spacecraft must be the "male" part of the docking process. Well, turns out it is possible to build a completely "androgynous" design which Sergei, Margo and Aleida hash out during a late night brainstorming session^note This is based on the Real Life Apollo-Soyuz which hit a similar snag which was resolved in a similar way

Grigory Kuznetsov

Played by: Lev Gorn

The commander of the Mars-94 mission, the Soviet contender for the Race to Mars.

• Actually Pretty Funny: He and Danielle crack up in "Stranger in a Strange Land" upon realizing that North Korea beat them to Mars, meaning that all of the realpolitik in the third season, and the tragic deaths that ensued, was completely pointless.
• Heroic Sacrifice: During the Kronos-1 mission in season 4, Kuznetsov gets trapped in scaffolding and his suit is damaged and leaking. Knowing that he'll run out of air before his crewmates can rescue him, he urges Ed to jettison the scaffolding and leave him to die rather than risk the debris crushing the entire ship.
• Secret-Keeper: He and Dr Mayakovsky learn that Kelly is pregnant with Alexei's child as of "The Sands of Ares," and Kuznetsov decides to keep both Kelly and Danielle in the dark about it until he informs Moscow of the development.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Has this kind of relationship with Danielle Poole, once Sojourner-1 and Mars-94 become a joint mission in the Race to Mars, up to and including behaviour such as telling Poole not to order his team around and attempting to sneak out of the ship to become the first man on Mars. Suffice to say, Danielle wasn't having any of it.
  • He has a more amicable working relationship with Ed during the joint Soviet-Helios mission, however, and when the missions stay on Mars to save Kelly, he becomes extremely close with both Danielle and Ed. By Season 4, the three of them are close friends.

Irina Morozova

Player by: Svetlana Efremova

The head of Roscosmos following Gorbachev's ouster by communist hardliners.

• The Handler: She was Sergei's handler while working at the KGB.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Goldilocks would have made it to Earth if Irina didn't have Sergei assassinated, thereby spurring Margo and Aleida into helping Dev's plan to keep it at Mars.
• You Have Failed Me: She has Sergei assassinated for his defection. And she potentially ends up on the receiving end of this when she fails to help the M-7 nations bring the Goldilocks asteroid to Earth.

Private Sector

Sam Cleveland

Played by: Jeff Hephner

A Texan investor who becomes Tracy Stevens' second husband at the start of Season 2.

• Back for the Dead: He returns in the first episode of Season 3, revealing he and Karen Baldwin have created a commercial empire off the backs of NASA, including a state-of-the-art space hotel, only for him to die in an elevator crash.
• Book Ends: He is introduced by Tracy as taking part in a wild wedding and honeymoon at the start of Season 2. He begins Season 3 by hosting a similar wild wedding at his new space hotel on the same day he dies.
• Honest Corporate Executive: Despite being incredibly wealthy, he finds more value in the intangibles of what he wants to invest in rather than what it might bring back to him, though that's an added bonus. It's what allows for him to form a business relationship, and later friendship, with Karen as he seeks to acquire The Outpost and turn it into a brand.
• Millionaire Playboy: Very rich, and engages in a whirlwind romance and later brief marriage with Tracy Stevens.
• Skewed Priorities: When a piece of debris causes Polaris to start spinning out of control, his first priority is making sure the guests are comfortable, instead of making sure they're safe. Everyone on board could have easily been evacuated into the zero gravity section of the station until repairs had been completed, but because he wanted to ensure the hotel had a good reputation, he allowed them to stay ignorant to the danger until it was far too late to evacuate. This ends up killing him and nearly killing everyone else on board.

Dev Ayesa

Played by: Edi Gathegi

The co-founder of Helios Aerospace, a rising player in space-based industries at the start of Season 3.

• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: When introduced, he presents Helios as a non-hierarchical organization and engages in his employee's opinions. However, when the Russian Mars-94 vehicle develops trouble, he overrides Ed's wish to go to their rescue, forcing Sojourner to do it instead and allowing Helios to get to Mars first.
• Freudian Excuse: Dev's father was an aerospace engineer who built components for the Saturn V, only to lose his job after the Apollo 23 disaster and spend the rest of his life driving taxis. Dev is afraid to suffer a similar fate, which drives his ambition to land the first humans on Mars. In Season 4, we learn that he also felt abandoned by his mother after she left and he refused to come with her and abandon his father.
• Glory Hound: It's clear that at least part of his motivation for sending a mission to Mars is to be known as the man who beat NASA and Roscosmos at their own game. He doesn't take it well when they end up getting there first anyway.
• Honest Corporate Executive: He initially starts out this way. Helios is organzied in a non-hierarchical structure, with him having no office or official title. He puts major company decisions up to a vote with all of his employees. He points out that many achievements in aviation were made by private individuals, and sees Helios as no different than the Wright Brothers or Charles Lindbergh. However, he later overrides Ed's desire to help the Soviet crew, showing that he only cares about getting to Mars first. He is also able to manipulate the Helios employees into voting his way out of either loyalty to him or fear that they'll be dismissed.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Ego aside, Dev is not a villain. In "The Sands of Ares", when it becomes clear just how badly things have gone on Mars, Dev snaps out of his Heroic BSoD and promises Karen that he'll do everything in his power to find Ed, and is indeed the one who figures out how to save him and Danny.
• Laser-Guided Karma: He overrode Ed's desire to help the Mars-94 crew and locked him out of his own ship so that Helios could be the first to land on Mars. He's ultimately beaten by what ends up being a joint NASA-Soviet landing.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Played with. Being an African visionary who wants to help with the development of space through private industry, one could see him as a stand-in for Elon Musk, but the show's creators believe him to be a closer counterpart to similar innovators of the 80s and 90s, such as Steve Jobs. That being said, there are a few obvious references to Musk, such as the fact that their rocket engines, like those of SpaceX, are named after birds, and the landing shuttle Popeye is basically a boxier version of Dragon 2.
  • It's also worth noting that, in the real world, Elon Musk founded SpaceX because he was frustrated with the sluggish pace of human spaceflight development, which obviously isn't a problem in the show's timeline.
• Pet the Dog: He allows Kelly to bring her son with her to Mars, touched that she is showing devotion to her son that he felt he lacked from his own mother.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Initially played straight, when going over the retrofit of Polaris Station into the Phoenix, Dev tells Ed that he plans on automating most of the systems so Ed would be the only true astronaut out of a crew of visionaries. Ed rejects those ideas, pointing out how tough space is, and how he will need professionals trained to handle multiple different roles instead of artists, as well as needing control over the Phoenix if something goes down. Dev realizes Ed has valid points, and acquiesces to his experience. But later subverted during the trip to Mars, when the kind of crisis Ed warned about happens. Dev not only withdraws that on-the-spot command decision authority Ed was promised, he sends through a "software update" that engages the Phoenix into an automated mode, locking Ed and his crew out of any course deviations.
• Resignations Not Accepted: When Karen resigns in protest after the Mars-94 fiasco, Dev initially refuses to let her quit, and threatens to sue her when she does anyway.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After he is informed that the board intends to replace him with Karen, it's made pretty clear that Dev is going to leave Helios and take his staff with him, to start a new company that doesn't have a board to rein him in. The staff are excited to join Dev, but it takes an Armor-Piercing Question from Karen to change their minds once they realise leaving Helios for Dev's new company would negatively affect all of them, financially. All of them except for Dev, of course, who is already rich.
• Tranquil Fury: He rarely raises his voice when angered, preferring Death Glares and, sometimes, wordlessly crushing the nearest object. While the rest of the world is celebrating Sojourner successfully landing on Mars, Dev silently sits on a desk, downright pissed.

Miles Dale

Played by: Toby Kebbell

A Blue Collar American who signs on for Helios Aerospace's new colonization efforts, only to find that life on Mars isn't all that it is cracked up to be.

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• Amicable Exes: He's separated from his wife due to his lack of employment, but he's still tying to provide for his family.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: He fakes a high methane warning so that the North Koreans will evacuate their module and he can steal their outdated thermostat under the guise of fixing it. Colonel Lee catches him in the act, but he allows Miles to take the thermostat in exchange for helping him bring his wife to Mars.
• Motive Decay: While he initially wants nothing more than to provide for his family, the black market on Mars proves too lucrative for him to pass up, particularly when he finds a way to make bank selling Martian obsidian back to Earth. This leads him to become manipulative and callous to those around him.
• Phony Degree: Just before his interview with Helios, he lies on his application and claims he went to Florida State University. The recruiter takes a greater interest in him since his own brother went there, and this ends up getting him the job.
• Read the Fine Print: Dale is told to his horror that if he tries to go back to Earth early, Helios will slap him with a massive recuperation fee to "make up for lost investment" i.e. the resources they invested in training and shipping him to Mars. He is also shocked to discover that his contract allows Helios to charge him for the clothing and supplies they provide him. This means that he is earning way less money than he thought he was.
• Working-Class Hero: Unlike the other main characters, who had been trained as astronauts, Dale is just a blue collar Average Joe who's down on his luck now that fusion power has closed off the fossil fuel industry.

Sam Massey

A Helios engineer who's been on Mars for severa months by the time Miles arrives.

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• Anger Born of Worry: After rescuing Miles from a chasm, she angrily punches him through his spacesuit, furious that he would risk his life to collect Martian obsidian by himself.
• Broken Bird: She went to Mars intending to do meaningful work, losing her husband in the process, only to be relegated to menial labor with miniscule pay. On top of that, her friend Tom Parker was killed in the Kronos incident only to be overlooked and forgotten by much of the staff at Happy Valley. She's very jaded and cynical by the time Miles meets her.

North Koreans

Colonel Lee Jung-Gil

Played by: C.S. Lee

The sole survivor of the secret North Korean mission to Mars, who manages to endure the crash-landing of his spacecraft, only to end up stranded and alone on the Red Planet.

• The Aloner: Before Poole and Kuznetsov find him, Colonel Lee has been sitting alone in his crashed capsule, analyzing soil samples, eating tinned food, and listening to a taped song on loop while gazing at a photograph of his wife and trying in vain to make contact with Earth. When he draws a smiley under his kneeprints and starts giggling absurdly, we know he's starting to crack under the strain.
• Beard of Sorrow: Has grown a beard during his isolation, as there wasn't much of a reason for him to maintain one. He's clean-shaven again in Season 4.
• Sole Survivor: The only other member of the North Korean crew was killed in the crash landing.
• Walking Spoiler: His entire existence reveals the twist of Season 3 that the North Koreans managed to secretly send their own crew to Mars far ahead of what anyone else thought they could, and didn't even bother telling anyone because they lost contact with the craft when it was supposed to land, and covered up the "failure" on their end.