Space - James A. Michener

The countless readers who are familiar with such great Michener works as Hawaii, The Source, Centennial, Chesapeake and The Covenant will recall that they are all set in vast time frames, ranging from hundreds to millions of years, and that their actions take place in settings all around the world. 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 Earth.

This engrossing and informative novel is based on the activities 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; John Pope, high-school football star and student of astronomy; Dieter Kolff, rocket engineer associated with Wernher von Braun. These four, who will be crucial to the space programme, and their wives are principals  in the enormous cast of characters.

The story of what was behind the Gemini and Apollo manned flights, the Viking landings on Mars, the breathtaking performance of the Columbia, the encounters with Jupiter and Saturn by the Voyager 1 and 2 is vividly, dramatically and clearly told here: the complicated experimentation, invention and planning by scientists and engineers, and their debates about means and ends, their speculations about future accomplishments in space and the possibility of life in other galaxies; the personal rivalries; the political manoeuvrings 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 the possible.