For All Mankind Creator Reveals When Mars Became the Season 4 Destination

Apple TV+ is heading to the red planet. Debuting in 2019, For All Mankind takes world history in an alternate direction, one which sees the Soviet Union beating the United States to the moon in the space race of the 1960s. While it is said that throwing a rock in a rushing river will always lead to a course correction, this simple wrinkle in the past leads For All Mankind‘s current to slowly pivot human history in a new direction. With each season leaping forward one decade, every new For All Mankind batch includes a significant shift forward in space travel technology. Now entering Season 4, For All Mankind is prepared to land on Mars.

For All Mankind’s Mars Mission

Speaking to ComicBook.com at New York Comic Con, For All Mankind creator Ronald D. Moore revealed that while the series started out as moon-based, Mars has always been the destination.

“Oh, right from the beginning,” Moore said when asked at what point he knew he wanted to take For All Mankind to the red planet. “We laid out a general seven year plan for the show, and we just kind of laid out the jumps that were going to be basically a decade by decade. Mars was quickly right on target. We’re still basically on track to the overall sort of structure that we laid out back in the beginning.”

Unlike other space-based Hollywood projects, For All Mankind puts its strongest emphasis on the “science” half of science-fiction. 

“I wanted to have a show that not only told the audience what could have been, but what could actually still be,” Moore said. “I wanted the things that happened in this show to be plausible and real enough so that the audience could be inspired by it and go, ‘Wow, we really should have a base on the moon. We really should go to Mars. We really should mine the asteroid belt. We should develop much greater space technology.’ Expanding the benefits to people on Earth are real.”

Those aforementioned decade jumps continue in Season 4, which is the closest to the present day that For All Mankind has ever been. Even though this latest season roots itself in 2003, For All Mankind is operating with a level of technology that is essentially more advanced than what NASA has in the real world’s present day. With that in mind, questions are rising about what other planets For All Mankind could venture to next.

“There’s plenty of other planets and I think some of them are within reach in terms of, again, believability and what could be plausible sort of within the timeframe of the show,” Moore teased. “We have our eye on some other planets as well.”

For All Mankind Season 4 premieres on Apple TV+ on Friday, November 10th.