Space. A Novel.

The action in Space is confined to a tight frame of only forty years, but in a scene that extends for billions of miles beyond the surface of the Earth. The American explorations and discoveries in space provide the principal subject matter of this engrossing and informative novel based on the activites of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the fascinating people and intricate machines connected with it. The story begins in October 1944 and introduces four men: Stanley Mott, U.S. engineer in England on a secret mission: Norman Grant, naval hero in the Battle of Leyte Gulf; John Pope, high-school football star and student of astronomy; Dieter Kolff, rocket engineesr. These four, who will be crucial to the space program, and their wives are principals in the enormous cast of characters, which also includes Randolph Claggett, Texan, Msrine, astronaut, and his wife, Debbie Dee; Cynthia Rhee,glamorous Korean reporterriter; Tucker Thompson, ebullient editor of Folks magazine; Leopols Strabismus, self-named confidence man who operates on the fringe. Th incredible successes of the Gemini and Apollo manned flights, the Viking landings on Mars, the breathtaking performance of the Columbia, the encounters with Jupiter and Saturn by Voyagers 1 and 2-these awesome achievements did not spring full-blown from a presidential edict. The story of what was behind them is vividly, dramatically and clearly told here: the complicated experimentations, invention and planning by scientists and engineers, and their debataes about means and ends,their speculations about future acommplishments in space and the possibility of life in other galaxies, the personal rivalries, the political maneuverings in Washington; the selection and training of the astronauts; the excitements and anxieties of the flights and landings; the public relations and media confrontations. Space is a compelling narrative, fiction for the most part, but solidly built on the factual and possible.