People haven’t even solved their problems on Earth yet, as they started exploring the space. But simply exploring the space appeared to be not enough, and man decided to dream about populating the galaxy. Thousands of planets attracted mankind, and people boned up on them. But the obstacles were terrifying. The planets and satellites of Sol had proven comparatively obedient and those that were suited to man-life were quickly brought under his dominion. But there, of course, he had the advantage of proximity. The time involved in running back and forth to the home planet was meaningless and all Earth's resources could be thrown into each problem's solving. But a planet a year removed in transportation or communication? This was another thing and more than once a million colonists were lost before the people from Earth could adapt to new climates, new flora and fauna. So, mad with the wish to seed the universe with his kind, men sought new methods. To a hundred thousand worlds they sent smaller colonies, as few as a hundred pioneers apiece, and there marooned them, to adapt, if adapt they could. For a millennium each colony was left to its own resources, to conquer the environment or to perish in the effort. A thousand years was sufficient. Invariably it was found, on those planets where human life survived at all, man slipped back during his first two or three centuries into a state of barbarism. Then slowly began to inch forward again. In a thousand years it was considered by the Office of Galactic Colonization such pioneers had largely adjusted to the new environment and were ready for civilization, industrialization and eventual assimilation into the rapidly evolving Galactic Commonwealth.