For All Mankind Season 5 Brings One Of Foundation's Doomed Sci-Fi Concepts To Our Solar System

Spoilers ahead for "For All Mankind" season 5, episode 2, "The Hard Six."

"For All Mankind" is one of Apple TV's best sci-fi shows. It's a fantastic series that takes place in an alternate timeline that's closer to the "Star Trek" universe than our current reality. No, there aren't aliens in this story (not yet, anyway), but it does use science fiction concepts in grounded ways.

From the very start, "For All Mankind" has introduced small changes to differentiate its timeline from ours while also illustrating how science and technology could have advanced under the right circumstances. For instance, the Three Mile Island accident never happened in the show's version of history, allowing nuclear power to flourish and fusion power to become a reality. Similarly, because the space race escalated beyond the 1960s, electric cars and robotics became commonplace much earlier in the series' fictional universe than our own.

Now, "For All Mankind" season 5, episode 2, "The Hard Six," has introduced what's arguably the show's most fantastical sci-fi element yet: a space elevator.

A science fiction concept that's been around since the late 20th century, a space elevator is, quite simply, a transportation system that goes from a planet's surface to space. Different scientists and authors have played with the notion for decades — most notably, Arthur C. Clarke, who included the idea in both his 1979 novel "The Fountains of Paradise" and his "Space Odyssey" books. Likewise, sci-fi properties ranging from "Three-Body Problem" to "Mobile Suit Gundam," "Halo," and even "Star Trek: Voyager" have all depicted a space elevator in some form.

Interestingly, a space elevator has even shown up in another Apple TV sci-fi epic: "Foundation." There, however, it proved to be a harbinger of doom, which doesn't bode well for the characters on "For All Mankind."

The space elevator on Apple TV's "Foundation," which is known as the Star Bridge and connects the planet Trantor to an orbital platform, is actually destroyed in a terrorist attack in the show's very first episode. It's a horrific event that causes millions of deaths and a massive war, all while setting the series' larger plot in motion. Eventually, though, "Foundation" season 3 reveals a huge twist involving the Star Bride explosion, changing just about everything we thought we knew in the process.

Getting to the point: When a sci-fi story introduces a space elevator, it's all but guaranteed the thing is going to come violently crashing down at some point later on. That alone spells doom for the space elevator that's being built for the Happy Valley base on Mars in "For All Mankind" season 5. In point of fact, this season has already started planting the seeds for this with the brewing conflict between Mars and Earth, which feels like something straight out of a sci-fi anime.

On top of that, there's an ongoing murder investigation that threatens to rock the very foundation of Happy Valley. Specifically, "The Hard Six" follows Mireille Enos's Celia Boyd, a member of Mars' Peacekeeper Security Force, as she uncovers evidence of corporate malpractice involving the construction site for the planet's proposed space elevator. What, exactly, is going on? And how did a dead body show up in the Martian desert? We'll have to wait to find out.

One thing is clear, though: "For All Mankind" loves space-related disasters, be they shootouts on Earth's moon or orbital hotels exploding. So, don't be surprised if the series adds a space elevator disaster to the list.

"For All Mankind" is streaming on Apple TV.