From the game's instructions: After an incident on 61 Cygnus in 2197 when a rookie pilot selected the wrong gear when docking with the main central reactor and reduced half the planet to molten lava, Gal-Corp decided that a special training facility was needed to provide an elite corps of pilots for the advanced military skimmers used in colonisation and reconnaissance work. The Galcorp Academy for Advanced Skimmer Pilots (GASP) was founded in 2213 to meet this requirement. With an intake of over a hundred would be skimmer pilots a year, only a few meet the exacting requirement of flying and combat skills. In order to graduate from the Academy cadets must complete 20 missions, grouped in five levels of four, successfully.