Re: The secret history of the US space program

David McMillan wrote:
>
> Then there's Warren Ellis, who spins a good yarn, but has a
> not-intended-facetiously story in "Planetary" where the USAF has a
> secret moonshot program running in parallel with NASA's, and secretly
> launches a Saturn 5 equivalent from an underground silo at White Sands...
> I mean, sure, it's a comic book, and the genre is replete with Secret
> Underground Bases, but *hiding* something big enough to build and
> launch an S5? C'mon, Warren!

You don't have a problem with Planetary's Verne-Wellsian Edwardian
space shot then...

Presumably the USAF space shot was disguised as something else, but I
admit the number of things that look like a Saturn 5 rocket are not
many.

However, besides possibly helpfully different laws of science (see
paragraph before previous, and also a technology that allows characters
either to enter a fictional universe or - I forget - leave one), the
secret masters of the world of PLANETARY have access to some technology
that we don't as far as we know, including, what, twelve different
alien spaceships in the possession of the Planetary Organisation?
Maybe they have special facilities in respect of construction,
fabrication.

It's been running so long I've forgotten, is this where The Four came
from? A team of astronauts are irradiated in space, develop strange
abilities, and set about conquering the planet by stealth. As anyone
would.

.

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