Template:Featured Article/06 2010



John Crichton is a scientist and astronaut employed by the International Aeronautics and Space Administration. He is preparing to embark upon a mission to prove his own hypothesis to see if a manned spacecraft could overcome atmospheric friction and exponentially increase its speed using only a planet's natural gravitational pull. His childhood friend and co-worker DK expresses great excitement over the mission, but John has reservations. Complicating matters is the arrival of John's father Jack Crichton, himself a retired astronaut of some repute. Jack pulls his son aside and tells him how proud he is of him. John feels it will be difficult to step out from under his father's shadow. As a memento, Jack gives him a puzzle ring that was given to him by cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

John boards the Farscape-1 space module - a craft of his own design. The shuttlecraft carying the module launches out of Cape Canaveral in Florida. The initial phase of his flight proves successful as the module slingshots around the Earth's atmosphere. Suddenly however, John finds himself pulled into an electromagnetic cloud. The cloud pulls the Farscape-1 into a wormhole that shunts him through space-time into another galaxy.

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