Edison's Conquest of Mars attempt at fiction, the book was published serially in the "New York Journal". Serviss went on to write other science fiction stories, arguably making him the first American to write science fiction professionally. An early example of what would later be called space opera, "Edison's Conquest of Mars" was also a particularly literal "Edisonade". The book contains some notable "firsts" in science fiction: alien abductions, spacesuits (called "air-tight suits": see Spacesuits in fiction), aliens building the Pyramids, space battles, oxygen pills, asteroid mining and disintegrator rays. The book is set following the abortive Martian attack depicted in "Fighters from Mars",
Space Exploration Alliance of establishing a permanent lunar base before follow-on efforts are made to move on to the planet Mars and beyond. The organizations involved in supporting the Space Exploration Alliance include: Collectively these groups total almost one million Americans as members or as employees of member companies. The first goal of the SEA was to work toward receiving broad Congressional support for the new national Vision for Space Exploration outside low Earth orbit, which the SEA refers to as "Moon, Mars and Beyond". The SEA began their effort by working together on a "Moon-Mars Blitz" campaign on Capitol Hill in Washington,