Season 1
"Red Moon"- After NASA loses contact with Eagle and assumes that the lander crashed, they order Michael Collins, who is orbiting the Moon in the CSM, to return home. Collins tells them to shove it because he decided long before launch that if anything went wrong, he wasn't returning home without his crewmates.
- Shortly thereafter, Armstrong is able to reestablish contact with Houston. While Eagle's landing was rough, both astronauts survived and the US successfully landed a man on the Moon.Armstrong: "Not one of my better landings, but like we used to say in the Navy, any landing that you can walk away from is a good one. We had a rough start but we decided to pick ourselves up and get back to work."
- One for Alexei Leonov, who in this universe manages to become the first man on the moon (in reality, Leonov was Russia's chosen candidate for their planned moon landing, which he unfortunately missed out on because the project was ultimately cancelled), beating his own earlier achievement of being the first man to perform extravehicular activity.
"He Built the Saturn V"
- Armstrong and Aldrin are able to successfully ascend from the Moon and dock with Columbia despite being unable to launch vertically after Eagle crash-landed.
- Ed, having been Hauled Before A Senate Subcommittee to testify against von Braun, instead takes full responsibility for not landing on the Moon during Apollo 10. It doesn't save von Braun, but it does convince Deke Slayton to put him back on Apollo 15.
"Nixon's Women"
- When given the objective of putting a woman on the Moon, Deke Slayton immediately dismisses the idea of simply putting an attractive woman in a space suit to land her on the Moon as a publicity stunt. He insists that if there are going to be female astronauts, they are going to be fully-trained astronauts that live up to his standards. The best part? With the benefit of hindsight, knowing what became of the first four female astronauts, Deke was absolutely right.
"Prime Crew"
- When one of the female ASCANs dies in training, Nixon wants to cancel the female astronaut program. Deke doesn't want to throw out all the hard work he's done to make the women into trained and qualified astronauts, so he holds a public press conference announcing Tracy, Ellen, Danielle and Molly as NASA's newest class of astronauts. Thomas Paine and Shorty Powers are caught completely by surprise and are dumbfounded, as they know that not even Nixon himself could undo what Deke did. Lesson learned: Deke Slayton picks the crews. No exceptions.
"Into the Abyss"
- After some tense moments and running into the danger zone for oxygen levels, Molly successfully finds ice inside the Shackleton crater on the Moon.
- Right after Seahawk lifts off from the Moon, we Time Skip forward two years to find that not only has NASA successfully launched five more Apollo missions (the real-life NASA only launched three more after 15, one of which was Apollo-Soyuz and never went to the Moon) but there are more on the way and 21 will be the first crew for Jamestown Base, the first permanent human base on the Moon!
"Home Again
- Margo makes a copy of Wernher von Braun's report revealing Ted Kennedy screwed over the Apollo Program to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. When Weisner classifies the report, Margo threatens to leak it unless he makes her flight director. He does.
"A City Upon A Hill"
- When Weisner tries to put a stop to Ellen's plan for Ed to throw the fuel canister to Apollo 24, Margo gets fed up and tells him that he can "either stay out of [her] way, or [he] can fuck right off." Gordo and Dani, acting as CAPCOM, are both very impressed.
- Said plan is pretty damn awesome too. Because Apollo 24 is tumbling uncontrollably and is out of RCS fuel to stabilize themselves, Ed can't dock the LSAM to 24 to slow them down. Ed has to throw a fuel canister from the LSAM to Apollo so they can use the fuel to slow themselves down into lunar orbit. Ed misjudges the throw and it ends up going over the CSM. What does Ellen do? She untethers herself from the CSM, holds on tight to the tether she's supposed to hook on to the canister and flings herself at it. She manages to grab on to the canister and successfully tethers it, saving Apollo 24.
- In The Stinger for the episode finale, we see the next stage of the space race, a Sea Dragon
heavy lift rocket taking off from the ocean.
Season 2
"Rules of Engagement"- When Kelly reveals she wants to join the Navy, Ed has a furious breakdown promising to sabotage any attempt to let her go and even orders her out of the house, leading Karen to start shoving him. Many other shows would probably milk this for all the drama it's worth, but instead Kelly nips it in the bud, stopping the fight and refusing to back off until Ed admits his reaction was due to his long-repressed guilt over being stuck on the Moon when Shane died, allowing him and Karen to finally openly discuss those feelings and move forward.
"Pathfinder"
- Danielle browbeating Ed into allowing her to command a future spaceflight, as opposed to merely being a mission specialist like all African-American astronauts up to that point. Although Ed initially appears to brush her off, he later spontaneously announces her as his choice for mission commander of the newly-announced Apollo-Soyuz project, and makes it his final act to secure her assignment before stepping down as Chief of the Astronaut Office. This is especially gratifying for fans that were dissatisfied with Danielle's story arc in Season 1, which mostly glossed over how she was the only African-American astronaut at the time.
"The Weight"
- After Ed and Gordo's dogfight causes Ed's plane to crash in the previous episode, Molly chews both of them out like a mother punishing disobedient children while telling them that they're on their last chance and if they screw up again, she will ground them. Every time they try to speak up, she shuts them down and when dismissed, the best they can muster is a quiet "Yes, ma'am" from Gordo. Then, when Margo and Paine try to argue against giving them one last chance like Molly did, Molly shuts them down and insists that as the Chief of the Astronaut Office, it's her decision and her decision alone.
"Best-Laid Plans
- Margo and Sergei find a solution to their docking problem together while drunk. They're so in sync, Sergei doesn't need to say a word out loud before Margo realizes what he's doing and joins in.
"Don't Be Cruel"
- The Lock-and-Load Montage as the marines suit up to re-take the lithium mine from the Soviets, while Reagan gives a speech and epic music plays in the background.
- Tracy's Airstrike Impossible as she maneuvers the LM through a narrow canyon in the dark, all while she and the marines whistle Ride of the Valkyries. After landing, her co-pilot turns to her and declares, "Tracy Stevens, you are a badass."
"The Grey"
- Gordo and Tracy's Dying Moment of Awesome with a Crazy Enough to Work plan of using duct tape to give themselves the bare minimum time to stop Jamestown's nuclear plant from melting down. After their long and tumultuous relationship, they go out as heroes together and their bodies are discovered looking completely at peace.
- To further hammer home just how awesome their sacrifice was, a look at the gravestones during their funeral reveals that both of them were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
- Danielle and Stepan complete the Apollo-Soyuz handshake mission, giving the US and Soviet leaders the perfect pretext to avoid World War III.
- Sally Ride, a civilian physicist, refuses to back down from Ed Baldwin—not only a hard-nosed military man but the man who can make or break an astronaut's career at any time—and does everything she can by word and by threat to keep him from starting World War III.
- The blazing row between Sally and Ed on the Pathfinder is interrupted by Piscotty, who picks up the Only Sane Man badge by reminding them what a bad idea it would be for anyone to fire a gun on a pressurized spacecraft and says that there must be a third option.
- Just like last season, the final scene features a decade-long Time Skip as an astronaut sets foot on Mars in 1995.
Season 3
"Polaris"- Seeing how much technology has advanced in this show's version of 1992, with modern-looking laptops, tablets, flatscreen TVs and monitors, and touchscreens, including a fully-functioning space hotel in Earth orbit that looks like it could be built, not with 1990s tech, but OUR tech.
- Also, Global Warming has been defeated thanks to breakthroughs in nuclear fusion, which hasn't been achieved even in our 2022.
- Danny Stevens heroically saving the Polaris space hotel by climbing up a multi-story ladder in 2-3g, then rappelling back down the outside of the space hotel to turn off a malfunctioning thruster while dangling on the edge.
"Happy Valley"
- Sojourner-1 reveals in the Cold Open that NASA has been busy during the two-year timeskip, and engineered the craft with a secret weapon: a SOLAR SAIL, which they unfurl and deploy while broadcasting out "A Pirate's Life For Me" from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney.
"Seven Minutes of Terror"
- The final minutes of the episode feature both the Helios and the NASA/Roscosmos crews attempting to land on Mars. Both landing sites are enveloped in a massive dust storm that drops visibility to near zero and causes instrumentation failures on both spacecraft. It gets so severe that the Helios lander is forced to abort back to orbit. Sojourner-1 presses on and vanishes into the dust storm as the descent engines struggle against the winds. And then...Poole: "Houston, Happy Valley Base. Sojourner has safely landed eight human beings on Mars."
- Mission Control immediately erupts in cheers and embraces. Even the Roscosmos representatives are overjoyed, with Sergei outright cheering.
- On one of the display boards shows the mission emblem with the text "First to Mars: Task Accomplished!"
- Crossing over with a heartwarming moment is the fact that Danielle describes it as eight humans. Not eight Americans and Soviets. Eight humans. It may not have started that way but the landing was a true collaborative effort.
- The fact that Ed was able to make the call to abort, despite his experience on Apollo 10, speaks very well of his character.
"The Sands of Ares"
- When the drilling accident buries one of the Helios habs under a Martian rockslide, NASA, Roscosmos and Helios all pool their resources with very little hesitation to find a solution to the problem. It's summed up perfectly by Dev.Dev: "These are engineering problems, my friends... and we are engineers."
"Stranger in a Strange Land"
- As it turns out, North Korea, of all nations, manages to beat both the United States and the Soviet Union by putting a man on Mars first.
- After the JSC Bombing, the smoke filled corridors make it difficult for anyone to find their way out of the building. Molly, who has memorised the layout after losing her sight, is able to escort several people through the smoke to safety by feeling her way around.
Season 4
"Glasnost"- In the span of just eight years, NASA, the USSR, and Helios have managed to grow Happy Valley Base from a mere outpost into a base that rivals New Jamestown in scale, with multiple subterranean levels and a relatively large permanent population.
"Perestroika"
- In what can only be described as the greatest heist in human history, Dev and Ed manage to steal a friggin' asteroid. The M-7 nations had intended to bring it back to Earth where it would be easier to mine its mineral wealth, but they manage to put it in orbit of Mars so that they'll continue focusing outward.
- Sam deserves a lot of credit for her role in the heist: making an unsanctioned EVA on the aft hull of Ranger, in a stolen North Korean spacesuit, without a tether, while the ship is under thrust. One wrong move and she would have fallen off the ship and into the exhaust plumes.
- During the attempted breach of the North Korean module, Miles rallies the Helios workers to strike back against the base security after months of suspicion and abuse. Miles also gets his revenge against CIA agent Bishop, using a tool to beat the ever loving shit out of him. Considering Bishop had spent several hours torturing Miles as well as threaten his family, it's safe to say he deserved it.
