Apple TV+Since quietly debuting in 2019, For All Mankind has taken quite a few very big leaps into an idyllic, space-forward future. The Apple TV+ series began with a simple hypothetical: What if the Soviet Union, not NASA, was the first to set foot on the moon? But with each season leaping 10 years into the future at a time, co-creators and showrunners Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi have been able to reinterpret not only the space race, but also unrelated aspects of pop culture, too.“I think Ben and I could spend days — and have — just talking about alt-history,” Wolpert tells Inverse. The second season of For All Mankind revealed that John Lennon survived his 1980 assassination; in a brief montage in Season 4, we learn that this universe’s Michael Jordan stuck with his career pivot to baseball. Such a history seems like something Wolpert and Nedivi would have a huge bible for, but the writers prefer to explore the future as it comes. “It is one of those things where you figure things out as you go along,” continues Wolpert. “There’s just not enough hours in the day with all the other stuff we have to do.” (That said, co-creator Ronald D. Moore has worked out a little bit of the alternate chronology for the Star Trek franchise in this timeline.)Will For All Mankind be the same without Danielle and Ed? | Apple TV+That’s especially true now, as For All Mankind’s first spin-off, Star City, prepares to deliver the space race from the Soviets’ point of view. There’s also the fifth season of For All Mankind itself, set to deliver the next chapter in the mounting conflict between Earth and Mars. But when are all these new installments in the popular space flight franchise actually coming out?“We still have our sleeves up working on all the visual effects and the sound and everything,” Wolpert says. “The combination of the writer's strike and doing the spinoff, Star City, definitely slowed things down,” adds Nedivi. “But what's good is, I think fans now are a little more, I want to say patient than they have been.”Per Nedivi, that patience will soon be rewarded with two shows in close proximity. There’s no concrete release date for Star City or For All Mankind Season 5, but each should be ready for lift-off sometime in 2026. “We’re going to get For All Mankind and Star City pretty close together,” Nedivi reveals. “I think it’s something that will pay off those who have had to wait a long time.”Could For All Mankind hit before the end of 2025? It’s unclear. In a separate interview with Collider, the showrunners would only commit to the time frame of “soon-ish.” Edi Gathegi’s space mogul spearheaded another major step forward at the end of Season 4. | Apple TV+For All Mankind Season 4 ended with space mogul Dev Ayesa (Edi Gathegi) scoring a coveted resource for the people of Mars: the Goldilocks asteroid. When we catch up with Dev, Ed Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman), Danielle Poole (Krys Marshall), and the rest of the cast — 10 years later — in Season 5, we can expect tensions to have risen between Mars and Earth, even more than in Season 4.“Season 5 is a lot about how that shifting of the decks really changes things,” Wolpert says. “As technology makes Mars more livable and it becomes a bigger colony, how does that change the dynamics of Mars and Earth and the solar system? I think it’s really going to be an epic season, and I think people will really love it.”Dev obviously won’t have stopped with Mars: For All Mankind Season 5 could see the mogul expanding his legacy to the planets further in the solar system. The possibilities seem endless on that front — but we’re also potentially coming to the end of our time with fan favorites who’ve been with the show from the beginning. After all, Ed Baldwin will be in his 80s, maybe even older.Wolpert and Nedivi remain coy about the future for characters like Ed and Danielle, but they do reveal that their initial plans for the series are unfolding as hoped. “The plan was always to catch up to the present... jump a decade every season, see the alternate history as it evolves,” Nedivi says. “I think that’s probably going to end up being six or seven seasons — maybe six. We still don’t know, but that’s the hope.”The future for this alt-history remains a mystery, but at least we know it will be “epic.” | Apple TV+In truth, crafting a new world has only been half the fun for the showrunners. “You talk about the alt-history; you talk about the sci-fi and going to space,” continues Nedivi, “but actually being able to tell the story of people’s lifetimes and seeing our actors go from their 20s, to 30s, to 40s, to 50s and taking that on — not just with makeup and hair, but even in the way they’re performing the character and carrying the trauma from the past — has been one of the gifts we’ve gotten from this as writers.”“I don’t think this show could have existed on any other network at any other time,” Wolpert adds. “What Ben’s talking about, that generational storytelling... It really was an exercise in patience. You don’t really get this full scope of the show until Season 3.”For All Mankind has long since hit its stride, but Season 5 could very well make this underrated series one that’s impossible to ignore.For All Mankind Season 5 is coming soon.