His ship, "Odysseus I", was not equipped for faster-than-light speed; hence the journey to Earth's nearest interstellar neighbor, a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, would take about 10 centuries. To protect him from aging, Astro was covered with a skin-preserving copper alloy (which was upgraded with adamantium in the Guardians of the Galaxy series) body-suit, and his blood was transfused with a kind of preservative fluid. Astro was launched into space from the Houston Airport in the fall of 1988.