Part of the NASA series
'Voyage' takes place in a world that almost existed but never was. John F Kennedy survived the assassination attempt in Dallas. From his wheelchair in 1969, the former president sets NASA a new, daunting challenge: " . . . to continue the building of our great ships, and to fly them onward to Mars."
His voice carries beyond the clamour of military and industrial lobbies keen to develop the Space Shuttle. Instead, Apollo flights continue, boosted by Wernher von Braun's cherished nuclear rocket. Both are high-risk technologies . . .
When the first Ares mission lifts off for Mars in 1986, it is both a triumphant climax and the end of a long saga of technical and human over-ambition. Ares carries three dedicated people, one of them a woman, who have sacrificed everything to achieve the single goal of reaching another planet: their stories weave through a decade of political drama leading to the transfiguring experience of a year-long journey away from Earth.
