I rewatched The Martian and totally forgot how optimistic this movie is about technology, America, and international relations 
when this movie came out in 2015 my little liberal ass loved it. i still believed in a future.
we dont even have bazinga mars nerds anymore just different flavors of “i wont eat the bugs” all clawing at each other to climb out of a pit rapidly filling with water
xi i will scrub toilets please give me a K visa 
It was a little similar in For All Mankind, where the USSR doesn’t collapse (because they got the moon landing first - it’s a space show so whatever, sure) and the “space race” continues to spur impressive feats.
But it very, very, quickly libs out and stops imagining this leading to a better future, just better technology - and almost all of the American cast are fucking awful liabilities.
Doesn’t FAM actually put in some effort to divert the USSR’s fate (w/r/t Andropov actually doing everything right before handing it to Gorby)? Or was I just reading someone’s headcanon?
I gave up on that after the 4th episode. Friends recommended it because I would like it. I’m assuming because the USSR still exists in the show but the POV of the show is just Americans the entire time