NASA will hold a two-day aerospace exposition this November, and it may draw a surprising number of "Simpsons" fans.

The event, which NASA announced today (Aug. 14), will be held Nov. 7 and Nov. 8 at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on Florida's Space Coast. It's called "Max Power," which is also a famous Homer Simpson pseudonym.

In the 13th episode of the show's 10th season, which first aired in February 1999, Homer legally changed his name to Max Power. He wanted to disassociate himself from a bumbling character on the (fictional) TV show "Police Cops" who shared his given moniker.

Homer made the switch to Max Power — which he said he got off a hair dryer — without consulting his family, a move that did not go over well.

"Wait a minute!" his dad protested. "The family name is my legacy to you. I got it from my father, and he got it from his father, and he traded a mule for it. And that mule went on to save spring break."

Homer's wife Marge was also displeased.

"But I fell in love with Homer Simpson," she said. "I don't want to snuggle with Max Power."

"Nobody snuggles with Max Power," Homer — or rather Max — responded. "You strap yourself in and feel the Gs!"

NASA's Max Power expo is about feeling the Gs as well, at least in part.

"The two-day event will feature immersive experiences for all ages to enjoy, including air shows, skydiving stunts, technology demonstrations, spaceflight hardware, military aircraft and behind‑the‑scenes access to America's spaceport," agency officials wrote in a description of the expo. "Attend talks led by NASA experts and meet astronauts from some of agency’s most famous missions!"

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, an accomplished pilot as well as a private astronaut, said that he plans to participate in the expo's air show. And, if you're unable to attend this November, you'll likely have other chances down the road.

"Certainly, the idea is that this event, Max Power, becomes the first of many," Isaacman said during a press conference today.

"Foolish, Earthlings!" The line most commonly uttered by two drooling aliens who have become a staple of "The Simpsons"' famed Treehouse of Horror episodes – Kang and Kodos. No, literally, they're in every single one, which is an impressive feat, 34 and counting. From major plotlines to brief cameos, they are the unofficial "Where's Waldo?" of Matt Groening's world and beloved (albeit feared) figureheads of the spooky specials.

On a much deeper level, Kang and Kodos are Springfield's answer to the spinning top of "Inception", the calling card that helps you realise, 'phew, I'm watching a Halloween special of "The Simpsons" and this isn't, actually, real life at all.' But seeing Kang and Kodos is also just a bit of fun, if you don't want to get that deep.

Growing up with Treehouse of Horror, from fresh episodes to spending my pocket money on the comic books, I've developed a complicated relationship with the aliens that I love, but also think are kind of gross. And, as we reach over 30 years of Treehouse of Horror (the original episode aired on October 25, 1990), it feels important to take a look back on what Kang and Kodos have actually taught us about space, how they fit into sci-fi history, and what we've learnt about extraterrestrial life.

Kang and Kodos are two aliens from Rigel VII, and while in season seven, Kang referred to Kodos as his sister, despite only having a slightly higher-than-Kang voice, they've established themselves as gender ambiguous. In fact, in season 30, Kodos reveals they have 32 sexual identities when growing intimate with Patty, Marge's sister.

Like many alien depictions in popular culture (but not all, here's to you, E.T.), they're pretty hellbent on destroying humanity and taking over the world, or Springfield at the very least. And let's not forget a few classic alien behaviorisms like probing and the bio-duplication in 1996's Treehouse of Horror VII of then-President Bill Clinton for good measure.

But being evil aliens wasn't always on the cards. In their first-ever appearance, in Treehouse of Horror I, they were merely trying to make friends. Titled "Hungry are the Damned", the Simpsons family gets abducted by Kang and Kodos and is welcomed aboard the spaceship of the one-eyed, slimy-mouthed, Rigellian-speaking aliens. Fortunately, and if by writer's magic, Rigellian is an exact match to English, and so we can understand this extraterrestrial chatter.

They explain that they want to take the Simpsons to Rigel IV, "a world of infinite delights to tantalize the senses and challenge your intellectual limitations". But, as Sherak the Preparer (voiced by the legendary James Earl Jones, I might add), begins to fatten them up with luxurious meals, Lisa grows suspicious.

In one of my favourite moments of Treehouse of Horror history, a misconstrued book seemingly called "How to Cook Humans" is dusted away to reveal it actually says: "How to Cook for Forty Humans", in an amusing homage to the classic Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man".

It's this assumption of wicked alien behavior from humanity that upsets them, prompting Kang and Kodos to drop the Simpsons back at home and set a target over Springfield for good. As Lisa so poignantly says at the segment's conclusion: "There were monsters on that ship, and truly we were them".

From there on out, Kang and Kodos were set on a mission to do bad things to the Simpsons and their hometown, seemingly in retaliation for Lisa's accusations. And so, throughout the last 30 years, they've made numerous attempts to take over the world, and have actually been successful in a couple of them. Though in keeping with classic Treehouse of Horror episodes, everything returns back to normal after the conclusion of each annual spookfest.

But world domination isn't the only interest of these aliens. We've witnessed them voted in as President or Earth's liberators and even as Selma and Patty's lovers. That's not the only case of intergalactic romance, either, as who can forget when Kang, in a bid to cement the Rigellians' position in sci-fi history, impregnated Marge and fathered Maggie. Aside from birthing the show's first hybrid alien-human baby, it also spawned one of my favorite Jerry Springer parody episodes: "Wife knocked boots with Space Stud!".

Most of the time, though, as joked by Kang and Kodos themselves, they are written into the show as background cameos or to simply narrate their observations from their spaceship, laughing at us, maniacally. According to showrunner and executive producer David Mirkin, these laughs sometimes just serve as a tool to make sure the episodes are the correct length for broadcast.

Sci-fi can certainly just be a little bit of fun with Kang and Kodos becoming Rocky & Bullwinkle, quoting Mork & Mindy ("D'oh. Shazbot"), and dancing in the Charlie Brown parody. And, in sci-fi moments I'll never forget, there's Kang's daughter taking Bart's virginity in Avatar parody episode, "In the Na'vi", or Selma and Kang making sweet intergalactic love in "When Harry Met Slimy".

There's also a few references that Kang and Kodos are simply hired actors in Treehouse of Horror, normalizing their position in the show and adding light and humor to the aliens, despite their penchant for world domination and evading dissection. At the end of it all, "The Simpsons" is doing exactly what it does best, making fun of some pretty serious situations. And given that Space.com itself is actually featured in one of the Treehouse of Horror episodes (well, Thanksgiving of Horror technically), we feel a special bond with these extraterrestrial goofballs.

Our real-life search for aliens has proved a lot less fruitful than those of the Simpson family, but given "The Simpsons" propensity for eerily accurate futuristic predictions like smartwatches, the Apple Vision Pro, and President Trump, who's to say Kang and Kodos aren't out there somewhere, laughing at us with constant drool hanging out of their mouths?

While I don't condone a 30-plus-year grudge, it didn't take all that much convincing for Kang and Kodos to become the invading aliens that have so often been portrayed in popular culture.

But as Kang (or was it Kodos) once said, "In Rigellian, there are no words as yours or mine," so maybe they just want to be loved, included, and praised for their acting prowess, and maybe we're the selfish ones for sometimes nearly forgetting to include them in an episode at all.

You can watch all of The Simpsons, including the regular episodes, the movie, and the Treehouse of Horror specials on Disney+.

"Futurama" Season 13 has officially lifted off on Hulu, carrying a crazy cargo load of 10 more hilarious episodes featuring the 31st-century antics of Philip J. Fry, Leela, Bender, Dr. Zoidberg, Professor Farnsworth, Kif, Amy, and the future denizens of the Milky Way galaxy.

Conceived by "The Simpsons" Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen, with executive producer roles falling on Groening, Cohen, Ken Keeler and Claudia Katz, "Futurama" continues to build its cross-generation fan based since its inception on Fox in 1999.

Planet Express faithful will be pleased to learn that this latest satirical peek into the colorful world of tomorrow still feels fresh and funny, despite its 26-year-old pedigree. Space.com connected with co-creator David X. Cohen to hear what potent gags, puns, and pranks are in store for fans.

"I feel really happy and proud of what we put out, but you never really know what people are gonna think," Cohen tells Space.com. "One of the original things we wrestled with when I was talking to Matt Groening about this in the late '90s and what the tone of the show would be.

"I love 'Blade Runner' but it's a very dark world, and that's a cool setting. Then I love 'The Jetsons'' tone but that's all happy. The logic is, we want to be able to comment on real-life problems even if we're in this crazy future. To address everything that people do in their lives there has to be good and bad. Just as today, there's technology that's great and there's technology that's terrifying. We wanted to give ourselves the maximum chance to have our characters experience emotions and problems people could relate to no matter how kooky the setting was."

Adding to the long-running series' spirited tone, Cohen admits that he always finds it tiresome that the concept of science is so often portrayed as the villain in popular entertainment.

"I know a lot of real scientists and I have a science background. Scientists just love nature and love the world and want to save it and have no agenda other than to know more about it. And it's a very beautiful thing. I always want to make science the hero in our show whenever possible. That's sort of a guiding principle for me."

"Futurama" simply wouldn't be the same without its phenomenally talented voice cast which includes John DiMaggio, Billy West, Katey Sagal, Maurice LaMarche, Lauren Tom, Phil LaMarr, Tress MacNeille, and David Herman. This Emmy-winning animated sci-fi sitcom seems even more relevant today as a contrarian choice for viewers tired of dystopia.

"The setting itself is optimistic in a subtle way in that the world is there in one-thousand years and life goes on," Cohen notes. "So that's good if that's the case. Just because we're not coming back and we're not going away at the end of the season it is a little bit of a looser season.

"There's a pretty big variety of episodes, a few of which are based on the characters' inner fears and personalities. In the first episode Bender is insecure about being short and makes himself 200 feet tall in a major overcompensation. We have some great backstory in Dr. Zoidberg which is strangely touching later in the season. And since this is Space.com, it relates a little to the concept of panspermia, which is a G-rated term. Look it up. So there's some interesting scientific comment in that episode called 'Crab Splatter.' Then an experimental mathematical episode where our crew goes into a completely abstract world of numbers. It was a question of how do we depict that and it has a lot of great 3D designs by Rough Draft Studios, our animators."

"Futurama" Season 13 is now streaming all 10 segments on Hulu , and also airing on FXX at 8 p.m. ET with two episodes landing each Monday. You can watch all your favorite sci-fi shows for less with our streaming deals guide.

Private Mars colonization has gotten "The Simpsons" treatment.

In the venerable show's latest episode — "The Marge-ian Chronicles," which aired Sunday (March 13) on Fox — Lisa applies to become an astronaut with a company called Exploration Inc., which aims to launch colonists toward Mars in 2026.

Exploration Inc. is an obvious nod to Mars One, the Netherlands-based nonprofit that wants to land four astronauts on Mars in 2027, as the vanguard of a permanent settlement. [Mars One's Red Planet Colony Project (Gallery)]

Mars One intends to pay for its ambitious activities primarily by staging a global media event around the entire project, from astronaut selection and training, to liftoff, to the pioneers' time on Mars. Exploration Inc. also relies on corporate sponsorship to pay the bills.

"Think of how satisfying it will feel to stand in the Valles Marineris and thunder-chug a Blue Bronco energy drink," one of the Exploration Inc. guys says to Lisa and some other applicants (who include "Simpsons" regulars such as Principal Skinner, Professor Frink and Rainier Wolfcastle.)

The company's spacesuits are covered with logos — for Laramie Cigarettes, Draft-Pigs.com and Simmer Time sauces, to name a few — and one prospective colonist (fringe character Disco Stu) has to drop out because he's not a fan of Fig Gluten cookies. ("The fig seeds get caught in my adult braces," he explains.)

There's a lot of other good stuff in "The Marge-ian Chronicles." For example, Homer and Marge aren't happy about Lisa's Mars ambitions, so they ground her. "You are confined to this planet," Marge tells Lisa. "And its moon," Homer adds.

Eventually, all of the other Simpsons — Homer, Marge, Bart and baby Maggie — apply to become colonists themselves, in an effort to make Lisa lose interest in the project. This development excites the publicity-hungry Exploration Inc. guys.

"A family unit could be perfect for this mission," one of them says. "NASA would never have the guts to shoot a baby into space."

There's also a reference to perhaps the best-loved "Simpsons" episode ever — 1994's "Deep-Space Homer," in which "average-naut" Homer launches aboard a space shuttle as part of a NASA plan to get more people excited about space exploration.

"Last time, I almost killed everybody," Homer tells the Exploration Inc. guys. Then, one of them asks him what he learned from his previous spaceflight experience. The response is pure Homer: "Lessons, I guess." 

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.

This season of "The Simpsons" has been particularly spacey.

In Sunday's (Jan. 25) episode of the long-running Fox cartoon TV show, SpaceX founder Elon Musk is "quietly" traveling the United States in his crewed Dragon spacecraft searching for something to inspire him. The billionaire inventor even shows off his "Springfield Hyperloop" featuring a small mouse that throws up after a ride on the machine designed to get people from point A to point B at high speeds on the ground.

Musk has been in the news a lot recently thanks to his new plans for his electric car company Tesla and SpaceX's contract to fly NASA astronauts to the International Space Station by 2017. And of course, at one point, Mr. Burns mistakes Musk for Henry Ford after being told that Musk "revolutionized the car industry."

You can watch a clip from the episode, called "The Musk Who Fell to Earth" in the window below via Hulu:

Two weeks ago, the Simpsons family was captured by a group of aliens that transported them to a far off planet, presumably far away from the solar system.

The space travel plotline also gave the TV show's writers a chance to dust off one of the most fun Simpsons-in-space gags ever. In a season 5 episode of the show, Homer travels to space aboard a NASA space shuttle and eats floating chips in microgravity. The new alien abduction episode called "The Man Who Came to be Dinner" features Homer trying to recreate that magical snack moment, but Bart keeps ruining his floating chip fun.

Homer eats his chips in both episodes while the song "On the Beautiful Danube." The song itself is actually a call-back to the soundtrack of the science fiction space classic "2001: A Space Odyssey," directed by Stanley Kubrick. You can watch a clip of Homer eating chips on the shuttle in the window below:

"The Simpsons" animators also re-imagined the cartoon cast of the show as characters from "Star Trek" for the end credits in "The Man Who Came to be Dinner." You can watch those credits in the window below via Hulu:

You can also watch the space chips clip from "The Man Who Came to be Dinner" in the window below also via Hulu:

Watch both full episodes for free on Hulu now.

Follow Miriam Kramer @mirikramer. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

"Futurama" has said goodbye yet again.

The final episode of the animated science fiction series aired Wednesday night (Sept. 4) on Comedy Central. Eulogizing "Futurama" is always a dicey proposition, however, since the show has come back from the dead several times before.

"In our hearts, 'Futurama' lives," series creator Matt Groening said Wednesday night during a webcast chat session celebrating the series finale. "We've been in this situation before. It's probably over, but we've said that before, too." [Top 10 Sci-Fi TV Shows Ever]

An eventful run

"Futurama" centers on the life of Philip J. Fry, a dimwitted 25-year-old pizza delivery boy who accidentally falls into a cryogenic chamber on New Year's Eve in 1999 and wakes up 1,000 years later.

Fry finds work at an intergalactic delivery company called Planet Express, which is run by the eccentric Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth. In addition to being 160 years old and a self-described mad scientist, the Professor also happens to be Fry's great-nephew, going down 30 generations or so.

A lot of other interesting and entertaining characters work at Planet Express, including the foulmouthed robot Bender and a one-eyed mutant named Leela, who eventually becomes the love of Fry's life (a bit more on that later).

"Futurama" debuted in 1999, running for four seasons on Fox (the same network that continues to air another Groening creation, "The Simpsons"). "Futurama" reruns were syndicated on the Cartoon Network, and then the show came back in four new direct-to-video films, which were released from 2007 through 2009.

Comedy Central reached an agreement with Fox to broadcast those four movies as 16 half-hour episodes, which became season five of "Futurama" and aired in 2008 and 2009.

Comedy Central then picked the show up in a more standard way, running 26 new episodes as season six in 2010-11, then 26 more as season seven in 2012-13. The network announced earlier this year, however, that it would not renew "Futurama" for an eighth season.

"Futurama" owes its extended run to its devoted fans, who convinced network executives that a market still existed for the series, said Billy West, the voice of Fry, Professor Farnsworth and many other characters on the show.

"I want to thank every single one of them, and if I could I would in person," West told SPACE.com before season seven premiered last year. "Because that's what brought the show back; we couldn't do much about it."

The end?

Fry and Leela get hitched in the series finale, cementing their love in a ceremony officiated by the reptilian Space Pope.

Those of you who haven't seen the episode yet can breathe easy, for that's not much of a spoiler. A lot of other stuff happens in the finale, which "Futurama" executive producer David X. Cohen described in the web chat last night as a "very romantic gore-fest."

Groening thinks this latest "Futurama" swan song — the fourth finale penned for the show by writer Ken Keeler — takes the series out on a high note.

"This one just worked really well," Groening said. "I think it's moving, and I think it's funny, and it's something you've never seen before."

But that doesn't necessarily mean that "Futurama" is dead and buried for good this time.

"We like each other," Groening said of the "Futurama" cast and crew. "We'd love to work together again."

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on SPACE.com.