This show dramatizes the first manned mission to Mars. The international crew is led by an American but includes a number of astronauts from other countries, including China and Russia. Even before they depart there are rumbles about why an American is captain of the mission, and almost immediately upon arriving at the missions staging facility on the moon the Chinese and Russian astronauts are conspiring, sowing dissent, and generally acting like a-holes with an agenda.
Here's the thing, although I will admit that I don't know how the first manned mission to Mars will actually go, this setup flies in the face of every lick of common sense. First of all, they make it clear that the United States largely paid for the mission. It's frankly hard to see how any country, US or otherwise, would willingly share the glory of such an historic achievement unless they had absolutely no other choice. That means any nation represented on the crew would almost certainly have serious skin in the game, financial and otherwise. Nobody is saying "hey, I know we just spent a trillion dollars building the infrastructure to do this amazing thing, but in the spirit of international cooperation we should give up some of the glory for the warm fuzzies we'll get inviting these other nations to join us." So whoever is there is from a nation that has a vested interest in the appearance of success. They are not going to risk their reputation by putting someone up there who's going to make them look bad.
Second, being an astronaut is kind of like being a soldier. Every member of the crew must rely on every other crew member with absolute faith. Space is so insanely deadly that anything less is practically suicidal. That means that by the time you've selected a crew, they have been run through a battery of every conceivable psychological test and training method to ensure that they work well as a team. Is it possible someone could hide their hidden agenda and fool everyone? Sure, it's possible. Is it likely? Not even remotely.
Third, while it is possible that mission control would have backups in the event that someone on the crew had to drop out of the mission, it would be backup teams, not individuals, except for the most unusual of circumstances. Crews for long term missions like this are trained in groups so that they work together as perfectly as possible. You don't just replace crew members because of whoever is winning a popularity contest on that day. If you discover a serious issue that could affect the team cohesion, you swap out the entire team. There is no margin for error out there and you don't gamble with those kinds of unknowns.
And finally, among the many things considered during the selection process is the candidates personal situation. That means, among other things, they would have required candidates to think about things like illness or death in the family, marital status, etc. I 100% guarantee you that no candidate makes it through selection without the commitment to put the mission before everything else in their lives. While I understand that they want to make things exciting with big dramatic scenes and all, one of the characters has a reaction to some bad news that, if I was NASA, would chill my blood. Astronauts need to be the kind of people that are rock solid under pressure. They're human, sure, but they don't have big emotional outbursts or casually question their commitment to the mission. And I get the feeling that they are going to make this a theme throughout the run, which doesn't feel authentic to me.
If the show was set at some distant point in the future or something where being an astronaut is a more common job, I could maybe feel better about the choices they made with respect to people's personalities. Apart from the team dynamics, the show makes a nice effort to get some of the technical details right, like the idea of using water from the moon in the hull to act as radiation shielding. The problem is that this is supposed to be the near future, which makes the show feel way too soap opera-y to me. I like Hillary Swank, I think she's a great actor, but three seasons of the best of humanity scheming and plotting while they attempt to set a milestone in human civilization doesn't seem very enjoyable to me. Maybe it wouldn't make good television, but I just don't think the first crew to Mars should have to learn to get along with each other during the mission, that should be a given. The focus should be on their mission, but maybe that's just not exciting enough.
Here's the thing, although I will admit that I don't know how the first manned mission to Mars will actually go, this setup flies in the face of every lick of common sense. First of all, they make it clear that the United States largely paid for the mission. It's frankly hard to see how any country, US or otherwise, would willingly share the glory of such an historic achievement unless they had absolutely no other choice. That means any nation represented on the crew would almost certainly have serious skin in the game, financial and otherwise. Nobody is saying "hey, I know we just spent a trillion dollars building the infrastructure to do this amazing thing, but in the spirit of international cooperation we should give up some of the glory for the warm fuzzies we'll get inviting these other nations to join us." So whoever is there is from a nation that has a vested interest in the appearance of success. They are not going to risk their reputation by putting someone up there who's going to make them look bad.
Second, being an astronaut is kind of like being a soldier. Every member of the crew must rely on every other crew member with absolute faith. Space is so insanely deadly that anything less is practically suicidal. That means that by the time you've selected a crew, they have been run through a battery of every conceivable psychological test and training method to ensure that they work well as a team. Is it possible someone could hide their hidden agenda and fool everyone? Sure, it's possible. Is it likely? Not even remotely.
Third, while it is possible that mission control would have backups in the event that someone on the crew had to drop out of the mission, it would be backup teams, not individuals, except for the most unusual of circumstances. Crews for long term missions like this are trained in groups so that they work together as perfectly as possible. You don't just replace crew members because of whoever is winning a popularity contest on that day. If you discover a serious issue that could affect the team cohesion, you swap out the entire team. There is no margin for error out there and you don't gamble with those kinds of unknowns.
And finally, among the many things considered during the selection process is the candidates personal situation. That means, among other things, they would have required candidates to think about things like illness or death in the family, marital status, etc. I 100% guarantee you that no candidate makes it through selection without the commitment to put the mission before everything else in their lives. While I understand that they want to make things exciting with big dramatic scenes and all, one of the characters has a reaction to some bad news that, if I was NASA, would chill my blood. Astronauts need to be the kind of people that are rock solid under pressure. They're human, sure, but they don't have big emotional outbursts or casually question their commitment to the mission. And I get the feeling that they are going to make this a theme throughout the run, which doesn't feel authentic to me.
If the show was set at some distant point in the future or something where being an astronaut is a more common job, I could maybe feel better about the choices they made with respect to people's personalities. Apart from the team dynamics, the show makes a nice effort to get some of the technical details right, like the idea of using water from the moon in the hull to act as radiation shielding. The problem is that this is supposed to be the near future, which makes the show feel way too soap opera-y to me. I like Hillary Swank, I think she's a great actor, but three seasons of the best of humanity scheming and plotting while they attempt to set a milestone in human civilization doesn't seem very enjoyable to me. Maybe it wouldn't make good television, but I just don't think the first crew to Mars should have to learn to get along with each other during the mission, that should be a given. The focus should be on their mission, but maybe that's just not exciting enough.