I would love to see a return to manned exploration of our solar system and colonization; I think it's worth doing. As long as we disintegrate into fighting among ourselves, and petty wars, and all of this nonsense, we become less than we might be. But the moment we look to the stars, and the moment we have a larger vision, we become something greater than any animal on this planet has ever been. And I think that's worth pursuing.
When we landed man on the moon, it's very interesting, because the reason for that, the political reason was the Cold War. It's like, well, we've got to beat the Russians. But the reason that all of humanity celebrated that when we did it was because we all recognized it was something great for humanity. It was a time for all of us. And so the petty reason behind it fades away and the larger vision of it stays, stands, it stands the test of time. So yeah, I think this is what inspired me. This is one of the reasons I'm a writer today and I think it's worth continuing that vision. Ray Bradbury was one of my good friends and a mentor to me for the last 15 years, and I was very inspired by him. His mantra was "live forever." He saw humanity living forever by traveling out into the stars. As long as we're stuck here on Earth, we've got an expiration date, but if we go out to Mars and then beyond, then we might last awhile.
It an interesting perspective, and it's refreshing. As much as it's sort of a “days of future past” approach, it's still gives some hope; that we're not all going to turn into zombies and eat each other.
No. No, and this doesn't mean that we won't have challenges. It doesn't mean that we won't take our weaknesses out into space with us. I mean, obviously, there will be warfare. Obviously there will be all sorts of challenges. There'll be great, great challenges, but I think there's also great possibilities. I like zombie movies as much as anybody, but, you know, there's something else to talk about, there's something else to explore. And so I'd much rather be doing this than, you know, the next zombie apocalypse film.
You’ve written for lots of different shows, writing in other creators’ universes, essentially. And Space Command is very much your own thing. How do you go about creating a unique science-fictional universe?
The way you do it – well, the way I'm doing it – is to start with the notion of “Okay, I want to do something that's a melding of sort of 1950s science fiction with looking forward from the 21st Century.” And then you start saying, “Well, okay, who are the people? Who are the characters? What is the story about? I'm very interested in how we either live in the shadow of the great things our parents have done, or try to live down the terrible things they've done. So that gave me something to start with, because I'd never seen something along those lines in a science fiction show. I, you know, I've seen a lot of things that dealt with – I mean, for instance, Star Trek: The Next Generation takes place 70 years after the original Star Trek but [the characters] aren't the children and grandchildren of those original characters.
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