Strip 878 -- First Seen: 2012-01-27
Escape From Terra is updated with new pages every Monday through Friday.

One Dollar Sale Continues!

Hard to believe it, but Big Head Press published it's first novel, over 20 years ago. To commemorate our stubborn longevity, we continue to stubbornly offer each of our non serialized graphic novel stories for just one mere American dollar (plus shipping). Start your holiday shopping early and light up some body's mind with one or more of these titles.

Offer only available in the United States.

Kickstarter Success!

The Not-Safe-Space 2 Kickstarter Campaign has ended successfully. Thanks to all who pledged!

Now we get to wait 2 weeks while Kickstarter transmits the funds, and Scott can order the books, and send surveys to backers to get current e-mail addresses for the .PDF versions and mailing addresses for the physical books.

All of this should show up in June.

The Transcript For This Page

Panel 1
Another long, horizontal panel. A NASA official on the left, Leon on the right. They are talking on the phone with each other and the phone chords connect. NASA logo between the two of them.

Narration: Also in 2011, The Space Shuttle program was ending and NASA was looking for private solutions for taking astronauts to and from the ISS, the International Space Station.

Narration: BALListic Solutions was on the top of the short list, but then disaster struck.

Panel 2
Large panel. Close up shot: Leon is looking at a miniature sculpture of the ISS, devastatedly.
Narration: In mid-2011, it was announced that the ISS would be shut down and dropped into the South Pacific, for “safety” reasons.

Narration: A number of companies offered to buy the ISS, but just as with Space Lab and Mir, the Powers That Be, were dead set against a space station in private hands.

Panel 3

Leon sitting on the couch, his arms limp beside him. The ISS miniature on the coffee table before him. His wife, Terry, pokes her head from the kitchen..

Narration: Leon was devastated.

Terry: Leon...

Panel 4

Terry has come up behind Leon and puts her hands on his shoulders, her face close to his.

Terry: Leon, snap out of it.

Terry: We don't need to be a delivery truck for the ISS. There are plenty of other things
BALListic can do; satellite launches, repair, retrieval, space tourism...

Panel 5

Leon has turned towards his wife angrily.

Leon: Terry, I want to go to Mars, not putter around in Earth orbit!