This year, we kicked things off by telling you how deadly and difficult space is to explore. It can kill you with radiation, giant flying space rocks, and regular old time. And those are just a few of its weapons. But while space is a pretty dangerous place, it's also incredibly inspirational. If you take science fiction as your model--which we often do--people are at their best when faced with a seemingly insurmountable challenge.

Today, NASA will launch its asteroid-sampling mission, OSIRIS-REx, from Cape Canaveral. It's the beginning of a seven year-long mission for the spacecraft, during which it will execute a number of death-defying stunts--including a slingshot around Earth that will send it toward its target, the carbonaceous chondrite asteroid Bennu. NASA is prone to anthropomorphizing its rovers and spacefaring robots, so we decided to go a step further and make OSIRIX-REx (Rex, for short) the star of his own comic strip.