Wormholes.

In the 1960s, the moon landing was seen as the crowning jewel of space exploration. It allowed humanity to travel through space, and achieve a dream. But while the moon would soon be left alone, until the 21st century, and would be settled and colonised later and used as a stepping stone, eyes turned to the red planet, Mars.

Much further away from Earth than the moon, the red planet had been the dream of many to reach. The only thing to reach it for decades had been machines which had landed and studied the surface of the planet which gave the brains back on Earth the chance to explore the planet remotely. Unfortunately for decades petty disputes and problems slowed down the plans and research into visiting the moon.

Finally, the base on the moon helped shorten the gap by building the spaceships which would travel from the moon, with the astronauts ferried to the ships built in the moon's geostationary orbit from Earth. Propelled by the new Epstein fusion-drive engines with light sails for additional thrust, the ships did away with the issues of launching from the gravity well of a planet, and was a great step for mankind with the building of a space station large enough to construct the ships in the moon's orbit, and boasted the most powerful fusion engines for the time.

When the ships were launched when the moon and Mars were perfectly moving into alignment, the fusion engines powered up and they travelled to the moon in a time measured in just weeks instead of months.

Entering orbit above the planet, the crew's nose cones jettisoned and slowly travelled down to make the touchdown. As the astronauts began their survey of the red planet, seen by millions of people thanks to the satellites they had dropped one at a time during their journey, they were astonished when their radio sets caught an unexpected communication.

People were laughing at them. As they looked around, the astronauts came face to face with a trio of kids, one wearing a fairly crude but effective spacesuit, who had just come out of a wormhole.

Yes, a wormhole linking a university in France to the red planet. The trio were physicists who had spent a while working on enlarging the wormholes in the quantum foam, which were laced throughout the universe and allowed free travel to every part, every corner, and every planet. Working together the three physicists discovered a way to refine the process, and they opened a wormhole to Mars. They knew when the astronauts would land because it was covered so keenly.

Very quickly, space flight became virtually obsolete. Every piece of research aimed at improving space technology went dark. Serious wormhole creation in the solar system quickly linked Earth to the Moon.

Explorers flew out into the solar system in droves, and people began touring the moon, and then to Mars and they were swiftly colonised. Prospectors and adventurers who had longed to go into space, followed by tourists found it easy to travel through to the different worlds and bodies in the solar system as easily as they would step through a doorway.

Probes and robots were despatched through the wormholes to explore hazardous places like the gravity wells of Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn in an unprecedented number. No longer did astronomers need to stay on Earth, nor did they need to spend weeks or months clamouring for a position on a spaceship to take them to the moon so they could record and observe a new discovery, now they could either travel through a wormhole and set up a telescope on an asteroid or open a wormhole to that location and watch a new discovery unfold, or even better they could arrange for a wormhole to open up close to new distant stars, planets, or pulsars, and study them closely.

For the next 30 years, wormholes were looped and laced through the solar system and vast swathes of the system were explored and colonised. Wormhole observatories were built on Earth, the moon and Mars and they opened gateways to other stars and planets when humanity's eyes switched to them.

Theories and observations taken through conventional telescopes and sensors were either proven or disproven. Samples of planetary air and explorers were sent through, while conferences were held to see if the results warranted a colony or not.

But one of the physicists said it was not a good idea, as they might need spaceships in the future and they were backed up very quickly since they saw the benefits of it, since spaceships could travel further than wormholes linking planets together, and it was a bad idea to put all of their eggs into one basket.

Once they had support, fresh research went into developing the Epstein fusion drive engines although they would go through wormholes and travel further afield on their survey missions, and to make new discoveries and to keep skills alive.

However, the wormhole's discovery led to the creation of the UNSC's greatest exploration period and would last for many centuries to come.