When we look at the Halo story, we look at the most interesting and entertaining aspect of it - The Human-Covenant war, it is undeniably the bread and butter of the Halo story; when we experience it in games it makes us feel a wide variety of emotions, from anger to sadness, thrilled to happy, moments of pride, and moments of shame, and regret. The story of Halo from books to games, has always made us appreciate and understand how well throughout the story is, but the truth is there are many more layers of story underneath the drama war story, told in Halo.
If there is one layer of the story under appreciated, or to be fair not thought about, is how we get to the fictional war between the Covenant. Space Exploration is the foundation for our eventual war story, it would be hard to argue otherwise because most of the story is about traveling through space and going to other worlds - unlike other games and media with a space setting, Halo's space story, and how we get there, is based more on logic then fiction. In the Halo Universe, our exploration of space is a mirror of actual events; which began on October 4, 1957 with the launch of Sputnik 1 beginning the Space Race between the United States and Russia, in the Myst of the Cold War. In the early years of the space race the United Sates was faced with blow after blow, their first satellite had been destroyed from a failure with the launch vehicle on December 6 1957, an embarrassing blow to a nation struggling to edge out the competition. The US continued to play catch up as the Russians launched the first living creature into space; a dog named Laika, and eventually landed a serious blow to the US when Russia launched Yuri Gagarin into space on April 12th 1961, becoming the first Human being to leave the terrestrial bounds of Earth. 20 days after Yuri Gagarin entered orbit around the Earth, President John F. Kennedy made one of the most memorable speeches in the history of space exploration "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth." Thus began the race to the moon, a race that would lead to the crowning achievement not only in the history of the United States, but for the entire human race - The mission of Apollo 11 and the landing of the Lunar Module, Eagle on July 20th 1969, an event we are celebrating today. At the conclusion of the Apollo Program in 1975 the space race was nearing its end, the motivation of both nations trying to beating out one another subsided, and in 1975 the two country's, in a gesture of peace and prosperity launched both of their vehicles and docked with one another becoming the first multinational mission between the two super powers.
At the dawn of the 21 Century, manned space exploration had shifted focus to accomplishing smaller tasks for a bigger picture, including the first international effort of manned space exploration; the International Space Station, currently orbiting our planet. Where our actual history begins merging with Halo's history is uncertain, which is one positive aspect, that whatever happens in our history will carry over to Halo's history. To a certain extent. At some point around 2025 and beyond, Man lands on Mars, and a new era of exploration begins, one mark by private colonization of both the Moon, Mars and beyond.
While many political and civil conflicts begins to rise in the 2100s' man continued to colonized its celestial neighborhood, and it is at this point another important ideal begins to take shape - while we've accomplished a great deal of things and achieved many goals, we as human begins are still not greatly motivated for exploring space. A very real issue we face in the United States today. As our Space Shuttle program comes to an end, we as Americans question the interest and value of exploring space, and it seems the same is true in the Halo Universe as our motivation for exploring space comes only after we are faced with a very challenging issue. This, is in this writers own opinion reinforced by the first human being to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong, who said. "We're very 'now' oriented. I'm not surprised by that. I think we'll always be in space, but it will take us longer to do new things then that advocates would like, and in some cases it will take external factors or forces which we can't control and can't anticipate that will cause things to happen or not happen." In the context of the Halo story our journey of exploring worlds outside of our solar system, is kick started by population surges and the overpopulation of the planet, coupled with the destruction and famine bred by the Rain Forest Wars, that threatened to destabilize the world economy.
As the story of exploration progresses in Halo, we begin developing methods and technology's at a rapid pace. In the fiction, it takes a unified effort of every nation to overcome these challenges, from tera-forming to faster then light travel, it becomes clear that one group alone cannot accomplish these things. And there is truth to that as well, one nation alone will not be able to accomplish great challenges of space exploration in our future - while we can argue for years and decades if a Unified Earth Government is possible or impossible because of our social differences and beliefs, space exploration on such a massive scale would require a multinational cooperation unseen in our time. Even something on the massive scale of the International Space Station could not be done alone by the US, and something like the ISS is an example of how we would all need to work together in order to colonize and explore space.
Another challenging issue of space exploration addressed in the Halo Mythology, is our means of getting from one place to another. The greatest thing holding us back right now is conventional rocket engines and fuel, while they can accomplish their goal of getting us into Earth orbit, they cannot get us to destinations like Mars and beyond, fossil fuels are our great economic issue and debate - the fact is manned exploration of space is not possible, unless we develop Fusion to a state where we can use it as a means of propulsion. In the Halo Story, the UNSC uses Fusion Engines on all of their spacecrafts. Even the massive and mighty UNSC Pillar of Autumn used the most sophisticated Fusion technology developed by man. At this very moment scientist all around the world are working to achieve Fusion, something that when accomplished will change our world forever. Fusion will be the worlds answer to energy, because its safer, and cleaner then our current nuclear power plants and oil. For space exploration, Fusion offers an advantages our current means do not - they are able to perform well with very little fuel, and powered by something that is available to everyone, Water. Fusion reactions applied to spacecraft offer more power then our current rocket engines and fuel do. We know that Fusion plays a large part in the Halo universe from spacecrafts, to an energy sources for city's and orbital platforms. Certainly in our future, Fusion will also play a large part in our everyday life.
If there is one part of space exploration that some believe is more sci-fi then fact, is faster then light travel. In the Halo Mythology our answer is Slipstream Space, a alternate dimension of time and space we use to get from one location to another. We do not understand exactly what slipstream space is and how we as humans plow into this alternate dimension, we only know the very basic's of it. Faster then light travel is something we are still a couple of hundred years away from, but it is something we can accomplish, and in the context of the Halo story this is also true, it is not until April 2291 that faster then light travel becomes a reality. And even then our understanding of FTL travel is not perfect, our understanding of it is limited, and the same will be true for actual faster then light travel if and when we actually achieve it.
For a fictional story, Halo embraces the very real exploration of space, it is a undertone of actual human error and risk, it is the embodiment of our dreams and hope for our species. And while some may always wish to crack a joke about the story about how it all leads to a unbelievable war with funny looking aliens, in all seriousness though the deep and small undertone of the Halo story is about exploring and the possibility of what we may find.
Today, July 20th 2009, we honor three Americans who did the impossible, who for one single moment in a time of war and rebellion made us stop in our tracks and marvel and embrace our power to achieve the impossible, and to explore worlds beyond our own. Even with something as silly as a Video Game we still honor all these individuals in a small way, who believe and commit to the very vision we write about.