Upcoming Missions and Character Dynamics in For All Mankind Season 5
By & Updated Apr 21, 2026, 1:08 PM EDT Summary Generate a summary of this story follow Follow followed Followed Like Like Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap
Warning: SPOILERS for For All Mankind Season 5s executive producers tease just how far in our solar system that humans will explore in future seasons. Apple TV's epic astronaut sci-fi saga depicted mankind's quest to travel to and establish permanent human colonies on the moon and Mars. For All Mankind season 5 now deals with the people living on Mars attempting to assert their independence from Earth.
With Mars now an established foothold, For All Mankind season 5 is setting up competing missions to Titan, Saturn's moon. Helios Aerospace and the Soviet Union's Kuragin group are launching to Titan to investigate signs of potential life. With , it's natural to think that Titan will be the endgame for the saga's outer space voyages.
ScreenRant's Liam Crowley spoke to For All Mankind's executive producers Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert about the show's future trajectory after season 5. Wolpert and Nedivi hint that while Titan is the "plan for this season in particular," audiences will see "the next steps" of where For All Mankind will go "in the next few episodes." Read their quotes below:
ScreenRant: The Titan missions that are ongoing right now, and I say missions plural, because we know there are a couple going on. We know For All Mankind is ending with season six. Are those Titan missions slowly being positioned as the endgame mission of this show?
Ben Nedivi: I wouldn't say that. I think the promise of the show was always that we were going to go beyond just the moon and Mars. I think that's kind of what I think Titan represents. It's one of those steps we've been looking to make from the very beginning. I will say you'll see more of it. I don't want to get into details of what exactly is going to happen, but yes, Titan is very much a plan for this season in particular. So anyone who's been following so far will see the next steps in the next few episodes.
ScreenRant: Okay. To clarify, Mars was a multiseason arc. We only started going to Mars in season three, and we're still fleshing it out in season five. So are you saying we can expect to go to places beyond just Titan?
Ben Nedivi: Now you're really digging.
Matt Wolpert: Yeah, you never know. There is always an instinct in humankind to wonder what's over that next hill. So we'll just have to see.
ScreenRant: I was just going to try and pry about Jupiter, but I don't think you guys have any plans to go to that place.
Matt Wolpert: Yeah, that would be a tough one. I think you'd immediately be eradicated to death.
For All Mankind's first two seasons established NASA's Jamestown base on the moon, and Mars became the focus of the series in season 3. As Liam pointed out, the story of is still evolving in season 5, with Dev Ayesa (Edi Gathegi) and Helios planning to build a massive city on Mars. Meanwhile, Helios and Kuragin are now en route to Titan.
To expand upon what Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi said, about why For All Mankind skipped Jupiter, it's not a planet that humans can set foot on and settle. This is the same case with Saturn and Titan. For All Mankind's space mission to Titan will investigate signs of life, but outside of building a space station, there's no actual colonizing gas giant planets like Saturn and Jupiter.
For All Mankind season 6 will jump forward for one more decade, just as prior seasons have, and it's likely technology will have evolved to the point where human exploration to Pluto and the outer solar system will be possible. With one season left, For All Mankind aims to "look over the next hill" and push as far as possible. Whether humans will journey to Pluto and beyond the galaxy remains to be seen.
Fans are invested in , but the built-in thrill of the series' alternate reality is how far astronauts, engineers, and scientists from many nations and corporations can travel beyond Earth by working together.
Mars might be the last planet humans can colonize, but For All Mankind's space exploration may encompass the farthest regions of our solar system by the time the show ends in season 6.
Ed's Death Has Also Impacted Nedivi & Wolpert Emotionally
ScreenRant: This is the first episode of For All Mankind without Ed Baldwin, at least to my knowledge. I'm sure he had minimal screen time in some episodes of past seasons, but now, he's completely gone. How did that feel, narratively, crafting that episode with Ed's absence? And also by proxy, who filled the gap? Who stepped in? Who got a little bit of added TV time now that he's no longer around?
Ben Nedivi: It was very weird, I have to say, because we've gotten so used to the character of Ed Baldwin being central to the show and also Joel Kinnaman, the actor, being central to our creative process. It felt a little weird. Matt and I even asked ourselves sometimes, "Why are we still here? The show should move on without us too." But I have to say, where it worked and where it was a smooth process was we had the talent. We have these fascinating characters to fill in the gap. The ones that are most obvious are his daughter and grandson. Kelly's been a big part of the show since season two, but she's coming into her own as an astronaut and, in a way, fills his shoes very much this season, as people will see. And then his grandson, Alex Baldwin, who I think people are already falling in love with, that character and the complexity he brings to that role. You're going to see a lot more of him coming up. I will also say there is, as an Easter egg, a new character also coming into the show that I think is going to surprise some people, but I think is also an amazing addition to the show. You can never really replace Ed Baldwin. I don't think that's possible, but I think his legacy, his memory lives on in the show and in the characters, and that's a big part of the season as well.
ScreenRant: Ben, you just had mentioned that Alex, we're going to see a lot more of him. Based on how this episode ends, Alex and Lily leaking those automation plans from Mars, they're getting all those news notifications, so I think they're aware at least of the digital scope of what they've done. Matt, are they aware of the true scope of the gates that they've opened by doing this?
Matt Wolpert: I think they're starting to realize it at the very end of the episode. You see that they're excitedly watching all these notifications come out and then their smiles fade a little bit as they're like, "Oh, wait a minute, this is huge." I don't even think their imagination would take it to where it winds up going in terms of how big it gets. I think there's that kind of enthusiasm of youth, act first and think about the consequences afterwards, which is both youth, but it's also a very Baldwin thing. I think that's part of the changing of the guard, Alex embracing his inner Baldwin.
New episodes of For All Mankind season 5 air Fridays on Apple TV.
Cast
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Ed Baldwin -
Michael Dorman Gordon 'Gordo' Stevens
Ronald D. Moore, Matt Wolpert, Ben Nedivi Expand Collapse
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