There had once been missions to colonize Mars, to explore Jupiter’s moons, and even to launch to the stars beyond, but every mission had ended in utter and disastrous failure. Ships blew up. Colonists died—and in deep space, death meant death, just as completely as if they had been gleaned. The idea of irrevocable death without the controlled hand of a scythe was too much to bear for a world that had conquered mortality.
