To the eye, it was simply a group of giant, windowless buildings; the conditioning chambers of ETBI — Extra-Terra Bio-Institute. But within them, in sealed cubicles, were a hundred varieties of temperature, pressure, lighting, and the other strange conditions of extra-terrestrial environments. It was a large-scale biological project that had meant much in Earth’s colonization of the planets...

ETBI, where the bio-conditioning was carried on, was a separate branch of the Earth Union Government, along with the Space Navy, Interplanetary Exploration and Planetary Survey Bureaus. The exploitation of space was a highly organized process.

First the ships of the exploration service mapped and explored, on any new world. Then the Planetary Survey experts tabulated all raw resources. mineral and otherwise. The Space Navy stepped in next, to establish outposts and fueling stations.