‘For All Mankind’: NASA Astronauts Are Under Threat in This Exclusive Season 2 Clip

Ahead of the Season 2 premiere of Apple TV+‘s space drama For All Mankind, Decider has an exclusive look at a tense moment from the first episode of the new season. In the latest season, its 1983, at the heigh of the Cold War when tensions between the United States and the USSR are at an all-time high.

In the start of the clip, Margo Madison (Wrenn Schmidt), observes a coronal mass ejection — a “major solar event” — heading their way,. “It’s bigger than anything recorded, period,” she tells Mission Control. “We’re looking at a few billion tons of solar material being ejected into space and heading this way.”

When asked if it’s dangerous, Margo explains, “The Earth’s magnetic field will filter out most of the hard radiation, so there’s no danger to life on Earth, but everyone outside of Earth’s atmosphere is at risk.”

While NASA is scrambling to protect their crews in space and get them to shelter and away from the risk, Irene (Leonora Pitts) points out the CME is deadlier than anything they’ve prepared for. When Edward (Joel Kinnaman) insists they’ll be ready, Irene replies, “But they never trained for anything this fast.”

She explains, “Coronal mass ejections usually take days to travel from the sun to the moon, but this isn’t a CME. This is hard proton radiation. That’s deadly, and it’s traveling at 30% the speed of light, which is really freaking fast.”

Just how fast? As Margo reveals, they only have 30 minutes.

For All Mankind, which explores what would have happened if the global space race never came to an end, imagines a world in which NASA astronauts, engineers and their families are at the center of events that take place in an alternate history timeline, where it was the USSR who beat the US to the moon.

In the new season, “Ronald Reagan is President and the greater ambitions of science and space exploration are at threat of being squandered as the US and Soviets go head to head to control sites rich in resources on the moon,” Apple shares. “The Department of Defense has moved into Mission Control, and the militarization of NASA becomes central to several characters’ stories: some fight it, some use it as an opportunity to advance their own interests, and some find themselves at the height of a conflict that may lead to nuclear war.”

For All Mankind Season 2 premieres Friday, Feb. 19 on Apple TV+, with new episodes premiering weekly. Watch the full clip from Season 2 in the video above.

Stream For All Mankind on Apple TV+