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

QV on a short break

QUANTUM VIVE is taking a break for a few weeks, as we prepare for Part 2 of the Novo Palermo story, and also for a Kickstarter campaign for Part 1, which will start in September.

In the meantime, Not-Safe.Space will continue, as a murder mystery begins and the relationship between Eithne and Diana develops in unexpected directions.

Not-Safe.Space is a NSFW strip but more than half the pages are SFW so I've set those to *not* require a Patreon membership. Readers should be able to follow the story without seeing the NSFW pages. If I've done this right.

Kickstarter successful and closed

The Kickstarter campaign for Not-Safe.Space Chapter 3 concluded successfully on April 21, and Scott extended the time allowed for late pledges until May 19.

Books have been ordered from the printer and Scott will be spending the next week or so setting up and sending the PDF files to those who asked for them.

(There are still six of you who have not responded to the survey asking for e-mail and snail-mail addresses, he'll do the best he can.)

Thanks to all for supporting this Kickstarter!

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!