Few ideas are nearly as tempting as setting foot on an alien
planet that can be both explored and even brought to life by
technology. And as the genre of science fiction has progressed,
so have our ideas of what interstellar travel and (perhaps more
importantly) planetary exploration would be like. And those
planets, as time has shown, have proven to be anything but
static lifeless bodies rolling through space. The planets
themselves just as the stories about them have changed
dramatically over time even if a few specific elements remain
the same. Prospective astronauts started with travel to the moon
in the classic film From Earth to the Moon. Soon entire empires
sprang up and were populated with ever increasingly mysterious
and strange creatures. As one small step for man was made on
Mars in Mars the Angry Red Planet, Earthlings discovered a
massive amoeba that threatened to claim their lives and gigantic
bat-like spiders that would prove difficult to kill by even
superior futuristic technology and weapons.