Briefing number 1015060816.
The Bradbury Heavy mission.
Earth is a planet of many wonders.
A rare mix of biological diversity
and abundant resources.
Humanity has always endeavored
to explore and discover in the face of even the longest odds.
But the third planet from Sol finds itself
on the brink of catastrophe.
Environmental changes and political unrest
has left Earth's long-term prospects
in a tenuous situation.
As a result, new horizons have grown increasingly appealing.
All systems are go for the first human flight
to the planet Mars
and the start of colonization of the solar system.
A large porthole is positioned
over the center flight commander seat.
For launch and until Mars landing,
it is sealed and covered to decrease radiation exposure.
The final air-to-ground communication checks
are conducted by Flight Commander Alexa Brandt...
MLC. Bradbury confirms porthole radiation shield closure nominal
and secured for launch.
And Pilot Casey Donlin.
TINA confirms
all Near Earth Network tracking frequencies are locked.
Flight engineer Rei Tanaka monitors on board fuel cells
preparing to transfer to ship's internal power.
ICC. Bradbury reporting six good APUs.
Flight Surgeon Katherine Langford
monitors the crew vitals...
Jerry, this monitor's reading
that you shouldn't have had the cauliflower
at the pre-launch dinner.
While Mission Specialist Jerry Pierson
awaits "all systems are go."
Well, when the ship launches, I will, too, huh?
Performing OMS tank repressurization.
They are aided by the on board
Transport Information Network Artificial Intelligence unit,
known as "TINA."
This is WTD conducting launch status check.
As all stations verify ready to resume count
and "go" for launch,
crew is advised to stand by.
Copy that. Crew standing by.
TINA, mute communications and play... "Family."
♪ I got a mother named Mary
♪ I got a brother named Barry
- ♪ I got a brother named Barry... - BTC?
BTC... go. ♪ And my uncle's name...
- LPS? - Go.
Safety console?
- Safety is go. - Range weather?
Range weather has no constraints for launch.
- ♪ And she's in the cemetery... - SRO?
SRO is no-go.
Repeat, no-go! ♪ My one...
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!
SRO, repeat your status.
♪ This is my family...
TINA, music off.
SRO, explain your hold.
At 02100...
This is confirmed? Where?
What is the confirmation?
Beyond the EAS... Now!
Tell me the fucking NASIC confirmation!
Jesus Christ.
LLC. SRO.
National Air and Space Intelligence Center
has confirmed detection of the launch of five long-range
Hwasong-14 ICBMs out of the North Korean peninsula.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Los Angeles and Seattle have already been hit.
Holy shit.
They have determined Wells Spaceport is the target
of one missile's trajectory.Oh...
- Delivery time, launch to impact... - What do we do?
30 minutes.
What do we do?
2100 was 20 minutes ago.
Scheduled launch in nine. That's a one-minute window.
If we ditch now, we can pop the hatch
and be down on the ground in about ten minutes.
No, we'd be vaporized by the 25th floor.
If we abort now, this ship suffers a direct hit.
- If we launch... - If we launch,
we at least get the ship out of harm's way.
If we don't even try, there's a possibility
the human race ends in ten minutes.
- Bradbury. - ICC.
NASIC has advised us to evacuate the facility.
Peterson Air Force Base is confirming
an American counterstrike... 45 Trident II missiles
against North Korean and Russian targets.
Abort or go?
We have no choice. We have to abort.
I did not train
for four years
and give up my only family
to be nuked on a launch pad. Fucking go!
- Katherine? - Go.
We should treat this like every other cause
for environmental evacuation or hurricane
- or an earthquake. - Jerry?
It...
Fuck.
Jerry?
Go.
You hesitated.
Because how can this possibly be happening?
Four "go," one "no."
So what is this, fucking majority rules?
No, it's not majority rules.
I am commander of this mission. My rules.
Continue launch control protocols.
ICC. Bradbury.
Transfer all launch control function
and power to internal Bradbury.
Bradbury transfer to internal power
and launch control in three, two,
- one. - Brandt?
- Start. - I'm sorry,
but we did not come all this way
to bail out.
Go for auto sequence.
Good luck, Launch Control.
Bradbury, be advised.
From this point onward, we are evacuating the facility
and will neither deliver or receive commands
from the launch vehicle.
Godspeed, Bradbury.
Lower visors.
We are "go" for auto sequence start.
Go for main engine starter.
Main engine ignition.
Launch tower has been cleared.
Five voyagers setting sail
to a mysterious red light
35 million miles across an empty sea,
soaring within the greatest invention ever created
by the human spirit to escape a catastrophe made possible
by the most destructive regions of the human mind.
Individual madness
or shared nightmare?
The answer lies in their search for safe harbor
here... in The Twilight Zone.
You're traveling through another dimension,
a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind.
It is the middle ground between light and shadow,
between science and superstition.
And it lies between the pit of one's fears
and the summit of one's knowledge.
You are now traveling through a dimension of imagination.
You've just crossed over into The Twilight Zone.
Trans-Mars injection burn shutoff
in E-minus ten minutes.
Approaching Earth escape velocity.
Mission Command, this is Bradbury Heavy.
Please respond.
Mission Command, this is Bradbury Heavy. Respond.
- Mission Command, this is Bradbury Heavy. - Respond.
This is the Emergency Alert System notification.
This is not a test.
A nuclear weapons attack was commenced
against the United States.
TMI burn shutoff in E-minus ten minutes.
Nuclear bombs have been detonated
above several cities across the country,
including Washington, D.C., New York City, Los Angeles...
Turn that off.
TMI burn shutoff in E-minus nine minutes.
Yo, Pierson,
any chance we can eject the porthole cover
to get a visual on below?
Is there anything left to see?
Answer the question.
Yes, if we're gonna remain in orbit.
No, if we're going on to Mars.
We're going to Mars in...
eight and a half minutes, so, no.
I'd rather have a radiation shield than a window.
The cameras give us visuals.
Casey, we wanted this mission
since we were firsties with RedElev squadron.
Pierson, you beat out, what, 15,000 applicants?
15,380.
Katie lost her marriage
accepting this mission.
And just a month ago, we were all at Rei's father's funeral.
He was proud she was going.
We all signed up knowing
it would be four years till we came back.
And we knew during that time
that all of our loved ones would wonder the rest of their lives
about us if something...
went wrong.
We just never envisioned we'd be the ones wondering about them.
TMI burn shutoff in E-minus six minutes.
Our options...
We orbit Earth the rest of our lives,
burn up in the atmosphere when our fuel runs out.
Food will run out before the fuel.
We can try and reenter through the command module.
You know the CM is designed for a water landing.
No one'll be there to fish us out.
We'll drown - So we go.
We travel the 218 days and land on Mars.
It's a suicide mission.
- She's right. - We'd die there.
Yeah, we'd die of cancer and prolonged radiation exposure
before we could have the chance to refine enough fuel.
There's a test to the universe.
A scientific theory, made by an economist,
known as "The Great Filter."
The Great Filter posits
that life in the universe is very, very rare.
It's hard to start, harder to continue.
The test of life
is, "Can an advanced life-form make it
to another planet before it destroys itself?"
Most advanced life fails.
That's why we never encounter any other civilizations.
They destroy themselves before we can reach 'em.
Humans... Earth...
we're on the brink.
This mission was designed
because we had no choice but to find a way out.
TMI burn shutoff in E-minus five minutes.
We go, and we go together.
If we remain who we are,
hold on to the group's original goal,
to the world's goal for us,
if we stick to what we believed would get us there
over the last four years...
The stuff that makes us a family... I know we'll be okay.
And if anyone is alive at home,
maybe word will get out that we made it.
They can look up and see Mars, and have hope for themselves.
Go for Stage 3 TMI burn shutoff
in E-minus four minutes, 35 seconds.
Tanaka, you copy TINA?
Rei, do you copy?
If you won't do it, I will.
Rei,
shut off TMI now.
Orbital altitude
1,124 kilometers.
Go for second stage ejection in E-minus ten seconds.
Speed...
27,744 KPH.
Two, one.
Second stage ejection.
Earth escape velocity achieved.
Go for Trans-Mars injection in four minutes, 30 seconds.
TINA, deploy tethered SAT one.
Deploying tethered SAT one.
Tethered SAT one deployment nominal.
TINA, deploy tethered SAT two.
Deploying tethered SAT two.
Tethered SAT two deployment completed.
Tethered centripetal gravity configuration is on standby.
TINA,
deploy tethered SAT engines and commence rotational gravity.
Trans-Mars third stage injection burn shutoff
in E-minus ten, nine,
eight, seven,
six, five,
four, three,
two, one.
Tethered SAT burn... complete.
Rotational pseudo-gravity is operational.
TMI burn complete.
Duration: 125 seconds.
All engines shut down.
I'll say it.
Good flying.
Just as planned, every second.
Now that we've escaped Earth's atmosphere...
we will never see another star twinkle again.
Everyone...
who's ever lived, billions, the good, the bad,
everyone's dead.
Everyone's fucking dead.
Except us.
Still nothing?
It's the same thing
as when Donlin tried to call his brother.
The phone rings at my mom's house,
but nobody ever answers.
Enhanced radiation weapon neutron burst
would minimize infrastructure damage
while optimally killing civilians.
That's why the phones don't work.
These calls you're making won't do anyone any good.
We need to accept what happened. We need to move on.
TINA, no more softphone calls to Earth without my permission.
Communications to Earth are blocked.
Stopping Tanaka from phoning her family
won't get her to fall back in line.
Those are my orders.
What the fuck?
"War of the Worlds."
Really?
It was-it was this radio play in the 1930s
where martians invade New Jersey.
Yeah, you know, I really love that show,
um... Wild Cards.
You know, Marines
fighting aliens in space? No, no, no, no, no. This was, like,
a hundred years ago, and the guy did it
so it seemed like the martian invasion
was actually happening.
Right? He used-he used, like, simulated news reports
and remote interviews. Can I get the broccoli?
But this was the first time
that anybody had ever done that. Right?
So, most people tune in late
because they're listening to another show,
they miss the introduction that it's a play,
and those people lose their collective shit.
Rei. Rei.
Come on.
Thank you.
TINA, lights on.
That's right, after 30 days, we receive a software update
for TINA from ground support, but...
there's no ground support.
Um, I'm the one that did the food supply manifest,
and I can't remember.
Is it real tomatoes in this sauce,
or is it the fake powder tomatoes?
Powder.
It's real tomatoes without the water.
Well, it tastes
exactly like that thing that your mom brought
to the Launch Control pre-launch potluck.
Hmm. Yeah.
Pan with the aluminum foil on it.Mm-hmm.
It does taste like
what Mrs. Brandt made.
Right, but that's what I'm saying.
All right, in your reality,
the tomatoes taste real. In mine,
no way. Butyl acetate and citric acid.
It's the same way you can hear a song
and think, "Oh, I really like this song,"
and I can hear the same song
and think, "Oh, this is total garbage."
Are you gonna do this the whole seven months?
I didn't know I couldn't say how I feel.
Sorry. I wasn't trying to piss anyone off.
Excuse me.
Hello. You have reached the home
of Alexa Brandt and Natalie Miller.
Neither of us can come to the phone.
Please leave a message at the tone.
The voice mailbox
of the person you have called is full.
I'm not trying to tell you who you can
and cannot fuck, but we cannot do this.
This mission is not designed for it. You know that.
Commander.
Commander, look...
I'm sorry.
And it is not like me...
We cannot afford any accidents.
We cannot take on any additional crew.
We cannot risk any children.
Ma'am, we've been very careful.
The commander's right.
The ship's supply is painstakingly estimated.
It's 3,200 calories a day for a five-person crew, so...
If Tanaka had to begin breastfeeding,
her caloric intake would need to increase.
Now you care about my life?
You didn't care about my life at launch or at TMI
or now.
You all right?
We're officially halfway there.
I know Michael wanted a divorce
when you accepted this mission.
I asked you if you were okay.
Do you regret it?
I had a choice...
between Mike and a round-trip ticket to Mars.
I got neither.
Tell me about your nightmare.
I'm asleep.
Then dreaming.
Home.
At my parents' place in San Diego.
Sky is blue.
Ocean.
Natalie's there.
All my family's there.
And then I realize,
in the dream,
that I'm just dreaming,
that I'm not really there.
I don't want to wake up.
But I do.
This...
is the nightmare.
You're not alone.
We're in this.
With you.
You're our commander.
We're a family, and we need our mum.
You're the mom.
I'm commander of nothing but a slow suicide.
This is Whipple Mars Mission Bradbury.
If anybody can hear me on this frequency,
go to Distress Relay Alert. Come in.
Radio signal's taking longer.
Four minutes to Earth, the closer we get to Mars.
This is Whipple Mars Mission Bradbury.
Anybody receiving this transmission,
go to Distress Relay Alert.
Rei.
Commander gave the order.
No more transmissions to Earth.
What if someone answers?
Hmm?
Then what?
I'd rather just have faith they're not all gone.
Okay, on your mark, get set, go.
This is Whipple Mars Mission Bradbury.
Come in.
We'll both tell our secrets at the same time.
Caller on this frequency,
identify yourself.
The Munsters, brought to you by Joy,
the dishwashing liquid that gets you so clean
you can see yourself shine.
It's a TV show.
Television signals used to be broadcast
and have been bouncing around space for 70 years.
So we just bounced into, uh...
whatever that was.
The only evidence there was advanced life on Earth is fake.
Hey. You awake?
Yeah.
So, you know that idea we had?
Will these work?
Yeah? Yeah.
Yeah.
Once you've exhausted your anger,
you'll end up like Alexa.
We have to help each other. We have no choice.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Good night.
Night.
♪ Happy birthday to you
♪ Happy birthday
♪ Dear Flight Commander Alexa Brandt ♪
♪ Happy birthday to you!
Oh, shit. Fuck you.
Make a wish.
Blow out the candles.
Fire is prohibited
in this spacecraft.
- Relax. - Are you ready?
- Yeah. - Let's do it. Get up.
Um, so, I know that you're down.
And I know you know that I'm down.
So I'll help you if you help me.
We know you miss music,
and we both miss California.
So...
Happy birthday.
Yeah...
Yay.
Okay.
Okay.Yikes.
♪ All the leaves are brown
♪ All the leaves
♪ Are brown
♪ And the sky is gray ♪
♪ And the sky is gray
♪ California dreamin' ♪ California dreamin'
♪ On such a winter's
♪ Day ♪ Day
♪ Yeah ♪ How...
We can't remember!
I don't know the words! ♪ I'd be safe and warm
♪ I'd be safe and warm ♪
♪ If I was in I.A.
♪ California dreamin'
♪ California dreamin' ♪
♪ On such a winter's day ♪
♪ Stepped into a church!
Wow.
♪ I passed along...
Hey. Hey. Hey.
- I'm sorry. - It's okay.
I don't want to be
the mum.
I get it.
I'm sorry.
I ruined the party. I'm sorry.
No.
Hey, don't cry.
Hey, don't cry, Katie.
There's no need to cry.
I have the best gift. Uh...
And I've been waiting for just this day to give it.
It's the best gift, but it's not just
for Commander Brandt.
It's for all of us.
I have been collecting data since the launch to test
a hypothesis,
which, fortunately, I have proven
beyond any reasonable doubt.
None of this is real.
Nothing that has happened to us
has actually happened, nor will anything
that's about to happen to us.
This.
I mean, all of this. Uh...
We're fine.
We are in no danger.
None of this is real.
Alert. Alert.
Coronal mass ejection detected on the sun deck.
Solar flare estimated classification
X8.5.
An X8.5 solar flare would wipe out TINA.
And that would wipe out us.
Suspend pseudo-gravity
and position the heat shield
90 degrees toward the Sun
for the duration of the flare.
Uh, I got news for you.
None of this is real.
It's just a test.
None of this is real.
None of it.
All right.
It's just a test.
My hypothesis is such that the events on this ship
are the result of an endurance simulation experiment
meant to test crew morale
and mental durability during a trip to Mars.
Unlike other such experiments, we were not informed
in order to get a truer result.
Okay, to test my hypothesis, first, I made a calculation.
The probability of a North Korean missile launch
just 20 minutes prior to the launch
of the Bradbury... Jerry...
The result was 735.6
- billion, with a "B." - Exposure levels fatal.
- Pierson! Langford! - So, essentially, an impossibility.
Tanaka! Secure yourselves
in the flight deck! So the most likely explanation is
that we never launched.
While we were boarding the ship,
we were redirected in the launch tower tunnel
to a replica
Bradbury housed
in a facility on the Whipple Spaceport campus.
Jerry, we have to get to the cockpit.
Growing suspicious just after launch,
I was prescient enough to conduct an experiment
just prior to TMI.Pierson, sit the fuck down, man!
Jerry, I understand, and you are making complete sense.
But can you tell me from your flight seat?
O2 fans disabled.
I held a tablet stylus in the air and released it.
See? Rei.
If it floated,
then we were in orbit
and not in a simulation. Jerry,
you are endangering everyone.
You have to get to your flight seat.
Standing by for a 90-degree
- roll maneuver! - Shit.
Pierson, get in your fucking chair now!
Against my expectations,
the stylus demonstrated the properties of weightlessness.
Solar flare impact in E-minus 273 seconds. So,
obviously,
we are housed in
a six degrees of freedom simulator.
We're capable of performing the six types of motion possible
by a rigid body in three-dimensional space.
Surge. Heave. Sway. Yaw. Pitch. Roll.
Initiating heat shield. All of this against our wills
or even our knowledge. Now, I remain uncertain
at which point they redirected us into the replica.
In the tunnel to the launch pad is most likely.
But with a simulation this sophisticated,
who knows how long we've been unaware?
Jerry, I understand. And I believe you, okay?
I believe you...
No, fuck you!
You don't believe me!
You want me to do what they want.
They made us think that our families are dead!
They made us think that the Earth was destroyed.
They fucked with eight months of our lives,
and I saw them watching us!
Heat shield off-line.
I saw them on the monitor!
They are watching us do their test!
Shit.
They are watching us!
They're watching us.
Impact in E-minus 188 seconds.
They are watching us.
No, you don't.
ET liquid leaking.
No, you don't. No, you don't.
Pierson's fucking lost it.
I'm right! I'm right!
Unable to stop ET liquid leak.
Sit down! This toilet has
a disposal device comprised of plastic collection bags,
which, although tied up and stored for ejection
into the vacuum of space,
consistently released Jerry, please!
A thin two-micron fecal water...
We need to position the heat shield toward the Sun!
Vapor from the trash bags,
which, over a 12-week period of approximately
five to ten fecal collections a day, thus five to ten
interactions with a vacuum,
should create a crystallizing ring
of approximately ten microns around the internal...
Katherine, leave him!
If is the latent heat of freezing,
- Is is the latent heat of sublimation... - MILA alignment incomplete.
And R is the radius of the droplets
- or the plastic collection bags. - TINA, calculate portside
- orbital maneuver! - But there
is nothing!
There's nothing.
Heat shield repositioned.
There is nothing!
I took samples for 105 days
with my bare fucking hands,
and there has never been a ring!
All right, there has
never been condensation!
There has never been crystallization!
Where Z equals zero,
there is nothing.
All systems are go.
We're in a six degrees of freedom simulator...
where they control the video we see,
they control the audio we hear,
and they are watching us.
They're watching us.
OMB burn duration will be three seconds.
Okay, I will prove it.
Solar flare impact in 15 seconds... He's opened the air lock.
He's gonna get sucked out into the vacuum of space.
Not just into the vacuum of space,
but into a fucking solar flare.
Solar flare impact in ten seconds.
Stand by for OMB burn in ten...
nine, eight,
seven, six,
five, four,
three, two, one.
Six degrees of freedom.
Warning.
Air lock open.
Warning.
Air lock open.
♪ All the leaves are brown
♪ All the leaves are brown ♪
♪ And the sky is gray
♪ And the sky is gray ♪
♪ I've been for a walk
♪ I've been for a walk ♪
♪ On a winter's day
♪ On a winter's day ♪
♪ I'd be safe and warm
♪ I'd be safe and warm ♪
♪ If I was in I.A.
♪ If I was in I.A. ♪
♪ California dreamin'
♪ California dreamin' ♪
♪ On such a winter's day...
Well... was Pierson right?
Is there no crystallization there around the gasket?
There are crystals.
Jerry was wrong.
When my dad died of Alzheimer's,
even though he didn't know who I was for a couple years
before he died, I could still feel him
even after he was gone.
And as a scientist, I know that his scent...
could linger in his clothes and in his fabric
and in his furniture, but I swear, this was different.
I could feel him.
You know, I felt him.
I felt him here.
What is the scientific explanation for that?
For that sensation...
that feeling that they're
just gonna walk in the room at any moment?
Because maybe Pierson was right...
on the other side of these walls.
Yeah.
Jerry?
Knock twice if you're over there.
Oh, shit!
Okay, I thought he was gonna knock.
Oh, yeah. Oh, he's over there.
Oh, he's over there, all right.
He's watching us on the monitor,
laughing his ass off.
Suck it.
Jerry's dead.
Just like so many explorers that left their home,
Jerry lost that one thing that makes home safe...
that other far-off,
unknown places just don't have.
Home keeps us aware of who we are.
Jerry lost that.
His body will float around in space
long after the last star has gone dark.
He's the loneliest man there will ever be.
So don't romanticize Jerry.
Don't make him a legend.
Don't any of you walk out that door expecting to be home.
'Cause we're not that, we're not him.
And we may not have a home.
But we have each other.
We're family.
And TINA.
Family, yeah.
♪ I got a mother named Mary
♪ I got a mother named Mary♪♪ I got a brother named Barry
♪ I got a brother named Barry ♪
She was holding out on us.
♪ And he's in the military
♪ And he's in the military ♪
♪ Well, my grandma's name is Sherry ♪
♪ My grandma's name is Sherry ♪
♪ And she's in a cemetery
♪ This is my family
♪ My one crazy family...
Heat shield temperature:
1,500 Celsius.
1,300 Celsius.
Atmospheric entry complete.
Velocity: 17,300 kpm.
Go for parachute one and two deployment in three,
two, one.
Altitude:
11 kilometers.
Parachute deployment nominal.
9.2 kilometers.
Go for terminal descent.
Yes, Commander.
Go for landing gear deployment.
Landing gear deployment nominal.
Donlin, yaw ten degrees.
Copy that. We are go for touchdown.
One kilometer.
Velocity 60 meters p.s.
500 meters.
250.
200.
We're kicking up dust here.
50 meters.
25.
Ten.
Seven.
Five.
Two meters.
Contact light.
Ten degrees latitude,
110 degrees longitude.
Tharsis quadrangle.
Okay.
Engines shut down.
You know...
I say we name this place Piersonburg.
Congratulations, Commander Langford.
Nice driving, Casey.
Welcome to Mars.
Did we land on Mars?
Let's pop the hatch and find out.
Open Command Module porthole.
Let's see if Jerry was right.
Jerry died for nothing.
We made it.
We made it through the Great Filter.
The crew managed to make its way to its goal
despite considerable internal discord and strife.
Sufficient data collected to commence analysis face.
It is said that seeing is believing.
The crew of the Bradbury Heavy mission to Mars
might tell you otherwise.
They are about to find out
that they couldn't trust their own eyes.
But who, or what, can we trust
if not ourselves?
The answer lies somewhere between takeoff and landing...
in The Twilight Zone.
Captioning sponsored by CBS
Captioned by Media Access Group at WGBH access.wgbh.org