U.S. Astronauts Ash Lander and Krate Azimuth, each celebrated and undisputed American heroes, were selected for what had been referred to as THE MOST CHALLENGING MISSION IN THE HISTORY OF EARTH’S SPACE PROGRAM. Their mission: to find Flash Meridian, whose ship, the Trans-Neptunian Interloper, had been swept offcourse by an unseen gravitational presence and was hurtling toward the outer reaches of our solar system.

Advances in the field of warp travel had made interplanetary travel possible if not common. With these greater distances came greater danger, and the greatest enemy, our space pioneers were about to learn, lay within. The unfathomable reaches of the human mind challenged even those of deep, mysterious SPACE.

Here on earth, Alpha Control tracked the astronaut’s course, and kept the anxious public updated on the progress of the mission. Families across America gathered around their radio sets each evening to vicariously share in the excitement of space travel.

Our heroes enjoyed the novelty of weightlessness, and the new challenges that space travel offered.

Seen from Amalthea, its closest moon, Jupiter covers 1/4 of the sky. While Col. Lander would weigh close to 300 pounds on the surface of Jupiter, he finds that a single step on Amalthea sends him bounding several yards.

strapping on his vector boots, Col. Ash Lander is able to explore the moons of Jupiter without the confines of a ship.

While taking core samples on Callisto – also known as J-IV, strange and frightening transmissions were received at Alpha Control. Astronaut Krate Azimuth had been acting in a strangely threatening manner toward Col. Lander. Perhaps it was the solitude of space getting the best of him. Perhaps it was a chemical imbalance caused by warp speed…

… but when he turned his ray gun on his comrade, the fate of the mission and indeed the life of Ash Lander came into question.

…Most Americans imagined the frightening events set in the context of their own world.

Having fled the initial confrontation on Callisto, Col. Lander found himself hunted on a remote moon with no food, no water and no shelter, only his gun, which never left his grip, even when he fell from exhaustion into restless sleep,

and nightmares about what would come next.

Returning to Earth, a Vanguard begins to vaporize from friction with the air.

The Space Age began on October 4, 1957, when the first artificial satellite – Sputnik I – was successfully launched. That proved that men could actually put something into space. Later satellites – the Explorers, the tiny Vanguard, and other Sputniks – proved it many times over.