Review: An Alternate History of Soviet Space Exploration

What happens when a space program isn’t guided by science but by government paranoia?

Star City (Apple TV) shows viewers how that might have played out. Set in the same universe as the show For All Mankind, it offers a timeline where the Soviets have gotten to the Moon first. The Soviet space program’s chief designer just wants to send Russians farther and farther into the cosmos, but the KGB prefers to build a space station to spy on Americans. The KGB—despite not knowing “the difference between liquid nitrogen and vodka”—wins.

“Who knows where that might have led us?” a scientist says of the exploration plan. “Now all we’re doing is looking down.”

KGB orders often put cosmonauts at risk. The power dynamic between the KGB and mission-focused scientists may be exaggerated for TV, but we know the horrors of the Soviet surveillance state were all too real.

When someone in the show is suspected of spying for the Americans, a fresh-faced KGB operative finds evidence of her innocence. But the suspect is executed anyway. “We do not arrest the innocent, comrade,” the rookie operative is told. “Our power depends on it.”