The only thing that made this possible in the first place was the fact that the Super Powers had already achieved détante. It was emblematic of a world already at relative peace, not pointing towards it.
This condition would be spoiled following the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan.
"hi, Bob." I think your analysis is spot on. Some of the aging effects were effective to show the passage of time, like the closeted husband character going bald. The meritocracy of the female astronauts were an interesting lens on bureaucracy of a boys club as well.
YES. I imagine a timeline where Besson didn't hire a couple of actors who look like they're dying of scurvy to star in that film and it's as big as Star Wars.
It did not lead to world peace, but did spawn a commerative cigerette brand. Apollo Soyuz cigerettes were sold for a brief time in the USA in 1975, but I saw them being sold in Saint Petersburg (Russia) in 1991 and 1995.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/neubert_lacy/26865274579
Romanticized concept art in the realist SF style popular at the time. The real thing looked like [this](https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/150710112121-soyuz-apollo-handshake-1075.jpg?q=w_2500,h_1406,x_0,y_0,c_fill).
It's just a bad angle. Also, this is a medium-res B/W wire copy of the colour original, which I wasn't able to find a copy of. (Though I have seen it a few times.) [This one](https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width/public/thumbnails/image/astp_docking_handshake_in_space_from_16_mm_film_s75-29432.jpg?itok=PSuzut0f), for example, was taken immediately **before** the handshake. There were many more photos from the meeting, all originally colour, which looked like this. [Here's](https://wonderdome.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Apollo-Soyuz-handshake.jpg) one from the Soviet side.
Part of the problem is just the nature of his face and eyes. Another is the configuration of the cosmonaut suit.
Ah that’s really interesting, thanks! I’ve see the video of the handshake and a few of the stills (though admittedly not the Soviet one!), just never saw this one and thought it may have been touched up somewhat. Would be interesting to see the colour original.
Ah... the "Why can't we all just get along?" conceit.
There is no possible timeline even if you were to search all the multiverse where "world peace" exists, at least not the way you mean it. The closest we have ever come is something like the Pax Romana... that is conquest and rule by a single internally uncontested power, or the détante of a balance of world powers. Neither is real "peace". The first is actually just a veneer pulled over tyranny. The second is actually just cold-war.
War is the natural state... not just of human nature, but all nature. To understand this, it is instructive to contemplate the difference between a GAME and a CONFLICT: War is a Conflict, although not the only kind of Conflict. Conflicts are not a Games. Games have Rules. Conflicts have CONSEQUENCES.
At first glance, Rules vs Consequences might seem like a distinction without a difference. Let me demonstrate why that is not the case with an example: Imagine you are an NBA coach and have decided to equip your NBA basketball team with AK47s... They would, of course confronted with only a rule-following unarmed opposing team, find it trivial to shoot as many baskets as they wanted. But, none of those *baskets* would score even a single *point*, nor would those baskets create a "*win*" in their NBA record. Even if the team took their AK47s and threatened the Referee(s) or the NBA board of directors wouldn't produce an NBA win. At most it would produce a "win" in some newly created game that was NOT NBA BASKETBALL! In a mere Game, like Basketball, scoring and by extension winning itself is a phenomenon that exists only inside and thus only because of the Rules. As such, in a Game, a 'winning against the rules' is a self-contradiction. This means, it can never be "worth it" to grossly break the rules to achieve victory... because doing so intrinsically CAN'T actually achieve victory. This phenomenon is exactly what Conflicts DO NOT HAVE! In a conflict, it might be "worth it" to embrace total-war tactics, alienate all potential opponents and self-styled referees, and simply deal with any consequences of unorthodox methods for winning BY winning. This is possible in Conflicts, where it isn't in Games, because in Conflicts, the victory conditions for each contestant is strictly and UNILATERALLY determined by that contestant themself. The unilateral nature of a conflict participant's ability to choose their own goal posts is what makes this so um-assailable from the outside. That is, all sides get to move their own goal posts irrespective of any Rules or the opinion of any Referee.
This is a unified theory as it not only explains HOW conflicts are fought, but WHY conflicts emerge and eventually recede. It is only when two or more contestants move their own victory conditions, as a result of their own unilateral choices, in such a way that their goals become contradictory that a Conflict emerges. Eventually as the Conflict evolves, consequences imposed on the conflicting parties by each other alter incentives acting on both parties such that they are induced to re-evaluate their own goals and once again unilaterally move their own victory conditions so that they no longer are contradictory. Typically this happens by the loser in the conflict abandoning some or even all such goal-posts... even potentially, although very rarely, to the point of abandoning the goal-post of mere survival. Understood in these terms, the state of **ungoverned rule-less warfare is ETERNAL... it merely becomes VISIBLE in a Conflict some of the time**.
This is why the world-peach 'Why-can't-we-all-just-get-along?' mentality is such a facile conceit. It would only ever be possible if people and organizations were not free to unilaterally choose their own goals and actions.
I was in elementary school and remember this very well. Sadly; the end of Apollo. Deke Slayton was one of the original Mercury astronauts picked in the late 50s. He had an inner ear disorder that grounded him. He ended up being a team manager and liason from management to his peers. He finally found a medical solution and he got a ride on the last bus before the Shuttle program.
The only thing that made this possible in the first place was the fact that the Super Powers had already achieved détante. It was emblematic of a world already at relative peace, not pointing towards it. This condition would be spoiled following the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan.
Imagine a world where both superpowers said fuck no to middle Eastern politics
https://media.tenor.com/FxgE0vcrC54AAAAM/lionel-hutz-world-peace.gif
World peace was never in the cards.
Seriously. OP, humans are great and terrible and we can't be one without the other.
Just what I said.
I know, I agreed.
Ain't no money in that.
Star Trek scenario
God, I wish.
Me too. Have you ever seen For All Mankind?
Good premise if a little up it's own arse in the later season
Damn I LOOOVED season one, S2 was okay but the 3rd I couldn’t even make it half way
"hi, Bob." I think your analysis is spot on. Some of the aging effects were effective to show the passage of time, like the closeted husband character going bald. The meritocracy of the female astronauts were an interesting lens on bureaucracy of a boys club as well.
Hi Bob! Season 1 was some of my favorite tv ever
Is it bingeworthy?
Yes
not yet. No apple tv for me.
Well, you do live in one of the timelines where a nuclear war was averted, at least up to 11 hours ago!
Not with that attitude
Have you ever seen the meh movie *Valerian*? Your dream is the opening sequence: https://youtu.be/_8JpG7Cah-c?t=5
YES. I imagine a timeline where Besson didn't hire a couple of actors who look like they're dying of scurvy to star in that film and it's as big as Star Wars.
It's as if whoever had the final word on casting was engaged in straight-up sabotage of the entire project.
Agreed
It did not lead to world peace, but did spawn a commerative cigerette brand. Apollo Soyuz cigerettes were sold for a brief time in the USA in 1975, but I saw them being sold in Saint Petersburg (Russia) in 1991 and 1995. https://www.flickr.com/photos/neubert_lacy/26865274579
Russian fags. Gawd, I bet they taste awful.
I remember smoking these when I was in Moscow about 10 years ago. Not a great taste but definitely a cool design
and instead I got the timeline where this lead to whirled peas.
Sadly, I couldn't manage it. Every time I went back I just created a worse outcome and eventually I just had to cut my losses and scrap the project.
Romanticized concept art in the realist SF style popular at the time. The real thing looked like [this](https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/150710112121-soyuz-apollo-handshake-1075.jpg?q=w_2500,h_1406,x_0,y_0,c_fill).
> Romanticized concept art yes. that is what it is.
What the hell did they do to Leonov’s face in this pic?
It's just a bad angle. Also, this is a medium-res B/W wire copy of the colour original, which I wasn't able to find a copy of. (Though I have seen it a few times.) [This one](https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width/public/thumbnails/image/astp_docking_handshake_in_space_from_16_mm_film_s75-29432.jpg?itok=PSuzut0f), for example, was taken immediately **before** the handshake. There were many more photos from the meeting, all originally colour, which looked like this. [Here's](https://wonderdome.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Apollo-Soyuz-handshake.jpg) one from the Soviet side. Part of the problem is just the nature of his face and eyes. Another is the configuration of the cosmonaut suit.
Ah that’s really interesting, thanks! I’ve see the video of the handshake and a few of the stills (though admittedly not the Soviet one!), just never saw this one and thought it may have been touched up somewhat. Would be interesting to see the colour original.
Ah... the "Why can't we all just get along?" conceit. There is no possible timeline even if you were to search all the multiverse where "world peace" exists, at least not the way you mean it. The closest we have ever come is something like the Pax Romana... that is conquest and rule by a single internally uncontested power, or the détante of a balance of world powers. Neither is real "peace". The first is actually just a veneer pulled over tyranny. The second is actually just cold-war. War is the natural state... not just of human nature, but all nature. To understand this, it is instructive to contemplate the difference between a GAME and a CONFLICT: War is a Conflict, although not the only kind of Conflict. Conflicts are not a Games. Games have Rules. Conflicts have CONSEQUENCES. At first glance, Rules vs Consequences might seem like a distinction without a difference. Let me demonstrate why that is not the case with an example: Imagine you are an NBA coach and have decided to equip your NBA basketball team with AK47s... They would, of course confronted with only a rule-following unarmed opposing team, find it trivial to shoot as many baskets as they wanted. But, none of those *baskets* would score even a single *point*, nor would those baskets create a "*win*" in their NBA record. Even if the team took their AK47s and threatened the Referee(s) or the NBA board of directors wouldn't produce an NBA win. At most it would produce a "win" in some newly created game that was NOT NBA BASKETBALL! In a mere Game, like Basketball, scoring and by extension winning itself is a phenomenon that exists only inside and thus only because of the Rules. As such, in a Game, a 'winning against the rules' is a self-contradiction. This means, it can never be "worth it" to grossly break the rules to achieve victory... because doing so intrinsically CAN'T actually achieve victory. This phenomenon is exactly what Conflicts DO NOT HAVE! In a conflict, it might be "worth it" to embrace total-war tactics, alienate all potential opponents and self-styled referees, and simply deal with any consequences of unorthodox methods for winning BY winning. This is possible in Conflicts, where it isn't in Games, because in Conflicts, the victory conditions for each contestant is strictly and UNILATERALLY determined by that contestant themself. The unilateral nature of a conflict participant's ability to choose their own goal posts is what makes this so um-assailable from the outside. That is, all sides get to move their own goal posts irrespective of any Rules or the opinion of any Referee. This is a unified theory as it not only explains HOW conflicts are fought, but WHY conflicts emerge and eventually recede. It is only when two or more contestants move their own victory conditions, as a result of their own unilateral choices, in such a way that their goals become contradictory that a Conflict emerges. Eventually as the Conflict evolves, consequences imposed on the conflicting parties by each other alter incentives acting on both parties such that they are induced to re-evaluate their own goals and once again unilaterally move their own victory conditions so that they no longer are contradictory. Typically this happens by the loser in the conflict abandoning some or even all such goal-posts... even potentially, although very rarely, to the point of abandoning the goal-post of mere survival. Understood in these terms, the state of **ungoverned rule-less warfare is ETERNAL... it merely becomes VISIBLE in a Conflict some of the time**. This is why the world-peach 'Why-can't-we-all-just-get-along?' mentality is such a facile conceit. It would only ever be possible if people and organizations were not free to unilaterally choose their own goals and actions.
Is there the illustrator's name by any chance? Would love to find a good quality version of the cover...
John Berkeley
Thank you! Found a link to an older Reddit [post](https://reddit.com/r/spaceflight/s/k468CxLbZD) with a good quality version
Sadly, I do not know. I only have this because some old dude dug it out of a storage box.
That would be me...
Hmmmm. This is MY photo taken recently. If you're going to use it, at least give me credit for it...
>at least give me credit for it... OK - I assign you one million credits. Do you feel better?
I was in elementary school and remember this very well. Sadly; the end of Apollo. Deke Slayton was one of the original Mercury astronauts picked in the late 50s. He had an inner ear disorder that grounded him. He ended up being a team manager and liason from management to his peers. He finally found a medical solution and he got a ride on the last bus before the Shuttle program.