NASA and the Soviets pool their resources to land on Mars together. Meanwhile, Danny is conflicted over his affair with Karen.
Tropes:
- And Mission Control Rejoiced: NASA erupts into applause as Sojourner announces that they have landed safely on Mars.
- Artistic License – History: We see a crowd somewhere in the USSR awaiting the first steps on Mars. One person is clearly holding the Russian tri-color flag, which wasn't used until after the USSR collapsed.
- Burial in Space: The episode opens with Danielle and Kuznetsov having a funeral for their fallen comrades and sending their bodies through the airlock.
- Cliffhanger Copout: The previous episode ends with the highly radioactive Mars-94 rolling into Sojourner and crushing an astronaut. Through the power of transitioning between episodes, Mars-94 has stopped moving (relative to Sojourner), stopped rolling, and stayed on the same side of the Sojourner as it was previously. It is also now safe enough to approach the fuel tanks, when one had just burst and caused the ships to collide.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Sergei had been tortured by the KGB during the last two years and now has a serious cough due to damage to his lungs. Margo thought that Gorbachev stopped that kind of treatment, but not even he was able to curb the KGB's power.
- Coming in Hot: If Ed hadn't aborted, both he and Danny would have become part of the newest crater on the Martian surface.
- Deus ex Machina: NASA and the Soviets have lost the race to Mars when all of a sudden a massive dust storm covers all of Helios's landing sites. This gives Sojourner enough time to get to Mars and be in a position to race Ed to the surface. Of course from the perspective of Ed and the rest of the Helios team this is a massive Diabolus ex Machina.
- Enemy Mine: NASA and the Soviets combine their respective missions so that they can beat Helios.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: If you look closely, Danielle sets foot on Mars a half-second before Kuznetsov does.
- Gave Up Too Soon: Ed hits the abort when the dust storm is still too thick. We then see that they were just meters away from the ground. However, it is actually justified, as with their rapid descent and having no visibility or altitude data, it would have almost certainly been disastrous.
- Generation Xerox: Ed tells Danny that, if they were still alive, it could have been Ed and Gordo or Shane and Danny making the landing on Mars.
- His Story Repeats Itself: Once again, Ed misses a chance to be the first human to land on another world. He even flashes back to Apollo 10 right before making the decision.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Dev locked Ed out of his own ship to stop him from helping the Soviets so that Phoenix could be the first to land on Mars. He's ultimately beaten by what ends up being a joint NASA-Soviet landing.
- Meaningful Name: The landing craft for Phoenix that Ed and Danny descend in is called Popeye, who was the favorite character of Ed's late son Shane.
- Mistaken for Profound: A news reporter takes the sight of Danielle and Kuznetsov walking onto Mars together as one of great symbolism for peace. But Kuznetsov was trying to back out of a deal for her to take the first step as mission commander, and if you look closely, they're actually trying to push each other out of the way when they're at the edge of the ramp.
- Never My Fault: Dev tries to claim that he didn't make NASA or the Soviets to move up their launch windows, even though his announcement of Helios launching in 1994 made it obvious both programs would move up their missions because they were also determined to land first.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
- Ed gives a short one to Dev for overriding his control and stopping them from rescuing the Russians, forcing NASA to do it instead and getting three people killed in the process.
- Karen lays it out on Dev for hiding behind "the group's decision" when he knew they sycophantically would vote his way.
- Resign in Protest: Karen angrily resigns from Helios after Dev forbade Phoenix from mounting a rescue.
- Secret-Keeper: Wayne knows about Karen's affair with Danny.
- Selective Obliviousness: Dev seems oblivious to the fact that he is manipulating the votes his employees take on important decisions. When Karen calls him out on it, he seems offended at the idea. He is so proud of Helios being a democracy that he fails to recognize that his employees might agree with him out of loyalty or fear rather than because they think he is right.
- Shout-Out: The quote Aleida says when she realizes that the Russian designs are identical to NASA's is from Ian Fleming's novel Goldfinger.
- Spotting the Thread: Aleida starts realizing someone is feeding the Soviets info first by how their nuclear engine designs are almost exactly like NASA's. She then relates how Alexi is using the exact same numbers on information as from NASA's two years ago and that there's no way a Russian cosmonaut can understand NASA systems so fast. Too bad the person she relates these two is Margo, unaware she's the mole.
- Stalker with a Crush: Danny starts hacking into the ship's computer so that he can see the video messages between Ed and Karen.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Ed and the Phoenix crew proceed to hack into the computer and disable the autopilot in order to prevent any further interference from Dev. It takes them 200 attempts to finally get deep enough into the system that they're able to disable it.
- Take a Third Option: As Danielle briefs the crew on taking the first steps, Kuznetsov gets into the airlock and is determined to be the first to set foot on Mars like they had with the moon. Both he and Danielle end up stepping onto the red planet at the same time, though they're actually trying to push each other out of the way in order to be first.
- There Are No Coincidences: Aleida realizes that the Russian nuclear engines are identical to the NASA designs from two years earlier."Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action."
- Title Drop: The episode's title comes from the period between Mars descent and landing in which mission control has no idea if their probe has made it onto the planet, as Margo explains to Sergei. The term is indeed used by Real Life NASA (to date only for robotic probes, tho)
- Tranquil Fury: Safe to say, Dev is pissed when NASA and the Soviets land on Mars before Helios.
- Weather Saves the Day: Phoenix enters Mars orbit a few days before Sojourner. However, a Martian dust storm obscures all of their landing sites, giving Sojourner the time to catch up and ultimately beating them to the surface.
