In 1969, a meeting took place between President Richard Nixon and the head of the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA). The NASA Administrator was expecting good news.

America had just landed its first man on the moon, and a committee of space experts put together by the President, recently delivered a detailed report that indicated the way forward for the space program. The report urged the construction of a permanent base on the moon, the development and implementation of a reusable “shuttle” to transport personnel to and from that moon base, and a recommendation that NASA tighten its grip on the attention of the world by sending the first American to Mars by 1983. This report was not science fiction. It was a very real recommendation to the President of the United States that illuminated the way forward for the American space program. Today was to be the day the president voiced his support for that recommendation. Yes, the NASA Administrator was expecting good news. He was wrong.

By the time that meeting was over, President Nixon had slashed NASA’s budget, set an end point for the Apollo missions, rejected the moon base and completely ignored the mission to Mars. Instead... he suggested NASA build the shuttle, even though it had nowhere to fly it. For the past forty years... we’ve been doing just that... flying to nowhere.

That is what happened. This series... is about what could have happened. It’s what could have happened if that meeting had a different outcome. It’s what we should have discovered, how we should have come together. It’s about making the decision to nurture and develop our grand tradition as explorers. It’s about discovering who we are and how we got here. That’s the premise for this series. It is set in the present... the present that should have been.