The first manned trip to Pluto discovers some fascinating and alarming information. A trip to Pluto uncovers information that changes science and human history as we know it.

A simulacron, who serves as a representative of an alien species, speaks with the US Secretary of Science about their wish to purchase the planet Jupiter. While the Secretary worries about stirring up conflict between the simulacron and another species, the simulacron assures him that no harm will come to Earth, and the two eventually reach an agreement.

When aliens land on a planet new to them, they find a population obsessed with a virtual reality and uninterested in the intense beauty of the natural world around them.

Prison inmates are told that they're being sent to scope out a new Earth for mankind to move to, but when they "come back" they find out they have just been play-testing a new virtual reality video game. Prison inmates are used to test a new video game which would have them inhabit a virtually real new planet, but they believe they are truly being sent to another solar system. When they realize that they've just been playing a game, there are long-term psychological impacts.

In contemporary New York, an unlikely friendship develops between the starship that hovers above the city and the Earth’s human representative. The ship faces a difficult dilemma—it must decide whether to leave to help its creators or to stay with its new human friend.

In a distant future where movies are made across the solar system, a filmmaker encounters several obstacles before making a groundbreaking discovery.

A pair of brothers came to a new planet to escape their harsh past lives. But it isn't the paradise they were promised, and now they must fight to survive in hostile conditions.

In the far future, a zealous scientist wanders the highlands of Venus alone, risking death at the hands of Cytherean tigers in order to discover the lost settlement that would vindicate her research and satisfy her jealousy for her "perfect" partner. What she discovers, however, fails to satisfy her. Tired of living in her famous partner's shadow, a zealous scientist in the far future embarks on a dangerous solo expedition through the highlands of Venus in order to discover the lost city of Ishtar. What she discovers, however, fails to satisfy her.

In the near future, two men—a quiet, rule-following biologist and a swashbuckling engineer—are tasked with a decades-long mission to colonize a planet outside the Solar System. But in the spaceship’s close quarters, tensions bubble up until one man decides he is going to kill the other.

In the far future, a Welsh woman temporarily moves to a space colony on a distant planet with her husband, Owen. The woman regals her space-born daughter with tales of the wonders of Earth, and her daughter develops a great longing for Earth that eventually puts her life at risk.