Wagon Train to Mars

When Gene Roddenberry pitched his idea for “Star Trek” to paramount pictures he called it “Wagon Train to the Stars”—a twist on a popular western television series in the 50s called “Wagon Train” which chronicled the drama of intrepid pioneers that ventured into the unknown mystery of the wild west. Roddenberry’s idea was that someday in the future there would be a next generation of explorers and frontiersmen that would set out across the vast expanse of space to homestead new worlds.

In the 60s President John F. Kennedy tasked America to put a man on the moon and in only...