How long does it take to get to Mars in For All Mankind?
For All Mankind puts boots on Mars in 1995, roughly six decades ahead of anything NASA has penciled in for real. As for the trip itself, the show gives two different answers — one for the 1990s race, and a much faster one a few years later.
The short answer
In the season 3 race, the crewed ships launch in 1994 and reach Mars in February 1995 — a transit of several months, made possible by nuclear-thermal engines. By 1999 in the show's timeline, the upgraded Sojourner 3 class can make the run in about 90 days when the launch window lines up. Real chemical rockets need around seven months, and the window only opens every 26 months.
The 1995 race, and who actually got there first
Season 3 stages a three-way sprint: NASA 's Sojourner 1 (a K-32 NERVA nuclear engine plus solar sails, assembled on the Moon at Jamestown), Helios's Phoenix (a converted orbital hotel), and the Soviet Mars-94. The order of arrival is not the order you'd guess. Phoenix reaches Mars orbit first but can't land through a planet-wide dust storm, and Sojourner makes its final burn using fuel siphoned from the crippled Soviet ship.
"Button up, people. We're going straight in," commander Danielle Poole announces in episode 5, opting to land through the storm.
She wins the race between the three ships. The planet, however, was already taken: a North Korean "unmanned probe" crash-landed on February 8, 1995, with two cosmonauts secretly aboard. The survivor, Lee Jung-Gil, became the first human on Mars — with a broken antenna and no way to tell anyone.
The 90-day upgrade
An in-universe Apple TV+ bonus video set in 1999 covers the next-generation engine, and later seasons treat the roughly 90-day crossing as routine for the Sojourner 3 class in an optimal window. By season 4's 2003 setting, Mars has a permanent base, Happy Valley, with crews rotating like it 's an unusually bad commute.
How the numbers stack up
- The show, 1995 — several months, 1994 launch to February 1995 arrival.
- The show, 1999 onward — about 90 days in an optimal window.
- Real life — about seven months one way, with a launch window every 26 months, per the mission profiles NASA actually studies.
For the record: in our timeline, 1997's Mars arrival was also named Sojourner — a 25-pound rover the size of a microwave. It drove a total of 330 feet and still made front pages worldwide.