Icarus Space Travel // Mars Box Set

The Icarus Collection by Familytree was inspired by Icarus Space Travel - a forgotten space program from the 1960s that history erased - or maybe it never really existed at all.

The legend goes that before SpaceX and Elon Musk were household names in private space exploration, Aldus T. Vernon, a brash and eccentric, albeit charismatic, billionaire who made his money in Texas oil and advertising, decided to take on NASA, and exploit America's space fever; promising preorder tickets for trips to Mars - despite the glaring fact that no one had yet made it to the moon.

The Icarus experience was meant to be one of comfort and luxury. No expense was spared on the design of the ARGO-01, a truly amazing and lavish design which was ahead of its time. All 500 seats aboard the spacecraft were First Class. Incredibly, Icarus claimed plans to launch passengers to every planet in the solar system within the course of the 1960s. Whether the entire program was a complete hoax or Vernon actually believed he could do it s a topic for debate, but unsurprisingly, sales were underwhelming and the company folded after a devastating explosion during a test flight that killed the entire crew. The lavish ARGO-01 shuttle was lost and so was America's confidence.

Conspiracy theories abound that a secret government program code-named "Chronos" was behind the Icarus collapse. Believers claim that time-traveling Chronos agents created an alternate timeline from our own, effectively erasing Icarus from history, preserving NASA as the preeminent space program of the day. None of this has ever been substantiated.

This Gift Box Set was designed as if the ARG0-01 had really taken flight, and includes the things you might have received, had you been a passenger.