Updated: May 22, 2024

Over the next 16 years, Smith had an exceptional career as a military psychologist and was stationed at a number of U.S. military bases in the United States and Europe. He was promoted to Colonel in 1995 and then transferred to the recently formed United States Space Corps. The USSC sent him to its Houston, Texas, training center, where he went through an extensive paramedical retraining program. The training combined his expertise as a psychologist with a new branch of medicine dealing with the mental stress and physical pressures that would be put on future space colonists. Only about two dozen people in the world specialized in this field, known as Environmental Space Psychology.

Dr. Smith was involved in the artificial intelligence programming of the Jupiter 2's M-3, Model B-9 robot.

Smith later used his position as a military psychologist to learn classified information from his patients using hypnosis and other means. His cover was obviously a good one, for while Smith never made many friends with his caustic personality, which was an excellent reputation as a doctor, and no one ever suspected his true purpose within the military. During his military career, Smith's tastes became very expensive, and he pressured his intelligence contacts to get him a position that would gain him greater income. They installed him as an operative within the USSC, along with several other operatives already there, collectively known by the code name Aeolus Umbra. Note: Aeolus was the keeper of the winds in ancient Greek mythology; umbra is the Latin word for shadow or shade, and, by extension, ghost or spirit.

The destruction of the Jupiter-1 in 1993, which was officially attributed to a fuel system malfunction, was probably due to sabotage by these agents. Although Smith was not involved in that disaster, he undoubtedly had help from other agents within the Space Corps with his attempt to destroy the second colonization ship.

After the launch of the Jupiter-2 on October 16, 1997, Smith's behavior became increasingly bizarre and childish, according to logs that John Robinson left on interstellar fuel barge F-12, which were later retrieved by Alpha Control. Within a year, the enormous stress of his space voyage, which has included contact with numerous hostile aliens, had transformed Smith into a mere shell of his former self.

The final paragraph of the Alpha Control profile of Smith reads as follows:

"Now that the investigation into Col. Smith's background has been concluded… the decision is up to the President as to whether Smith should be tried in absentia for murder, attempted murder, espionage, etc. Considering the negative publicity such a trial would receive, the current mental condition of the man, and the simple fact that Smith will probably never return to Earth to have whatever sentence he received carried out, we can only recommend that the man not be brought to trial unless he returns to his home planet."