- Hardcover: 384 pages
- Publisher: St Martin's Press; 1 edition (21 Nov 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 076530645X
- ISBN-13: 978-0765306456
- Product Dimensions: 24.5 x 16 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,809,360 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
"At last, a realistic whodunit in space! From a technical standpoint, the author clearly knows the systems, the hardware, the acronyms and how NASA's team actually uses them. He also portrays NASA internal and external politics dead on."
Product Description
It's 2005, and the world has changed. International terrorists have released a genetically modified disease, called X-Pox, on the world. There is no greater challenge to medicine than finding a cure. Biochem billionaire Tad Mikleszewski (called TM by nearly everyone) is a "space junkie" who has been the primary investor backing the Spacelifter project, a private attempt to build a single-stage to orbit vehicle. But Spacelifter's crucial test firing has failed, and TM is going to pull the plug. He has a better idea for getting himself into space....he'll buy research time on the International Space Station, to work on a cure for X-Pox. The Russians will sell him a seat on the Soyuz taxi vehicle for a mere $30 million.
But the equipment in the Harmony Laboratory module was salvaged from old Russian military labs, and perhaps TM's skills are a little bit out of date. A tiny leak - a small hole in the seal of the isolation box where TM is manipulating the X-Pox pathogen, and Harmony is contaminated by the disease that kills within three weeks.
Now it's a race against time, to rescue the crew and decontaminate the Space Station. NASA has a shuttle a month from launch, and if Astronaut Kelly Gessner can be retrained in decontamination procedures they can push that up two weeks. The Russians have a third Soyuz due off the assembly line, but Astronaut Mark Koskinen, NASA's chief of staff at Star City doesn't think they'll make it in time. But whether Russian or American, someone is going to have to get up there, and fast.
But the equipment in the Harmony Laboratory module was salvaged from old Russian military labs, and perhaps TM's skills are a little bit out of date. A tiny leak - a small hole in the seal of the isolation box where TM is manipulating the X-Pox pathogen, and Harmony is contaminated by the disease that kills within three weeks.
Now it's a race against time, to rescue the crew and decontaminate the Space Station. NASA has a shuttle a month from launch, and if Astronaut Kelly Gessner can be retrained in decontamination procedures they can push that up two weeks. The Russians have a third Soyuz due off the assembly line, but Astronaut Mark Koskinen, NASA's chief of staff at Star City doesn't think they'll make it in time. But whether Russian or American, someone is going to have to get up there, and fast.
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Tuesday was the day of the dead. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Tuesday was the day of the dead. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
As a non-fiction writer, Michael Cassutt has written some of the most important and notable space flight books ever, books which astronauts and cosmonauts themselves use to learn about the past and present of space exploration. There are, of course, many insider stories that CAN'T be told while the subjects involved are still alive. With this marvellous novel, Cassutt has created a very believable and thrilling premise, full of highly accurate detail on the space programs of three different nations, and created a fascinating, gripping thriller that had me eager to read more throughout. On a different but equally entertaining level, Cassutt has added in a good number of true-but-subtly-fictionalized stories, that let the reader know what really goes on behind the public image of the space agencies. Only someone with detailed insider knowledge, plus a great talent for telling a story could have pulled this off - and luckily Cassutt has both in abundance. A great book that I highly recommend and will greatly enjoy re-reading.
Format:Paperback
As a non-fiction writer, Michael Cassutt has written some of the most important and notable space flight books ever, books which astronauts and cosmonauts themselves use to learn about the past and present of space exploration. There are, of course, many insider stories that CAN'T be told while the subjects involved are still alive. With this marvelous novel, Cassutt has created a very believable and thrilling premise, full of highly accurate detail on the space programs of three different nations, and created a fascinating, gripping thriller that had me eager to read more throughout. On a different but equally entertaining level, Cassutt has added in a good number of true-but-subtly-fictionalized stories, that let the reader know what really goes on behind the public image of the space agencies. Only someone with detailed insider knowledge, plus a great talent for telling a story could have pulled this off - and luckily Cassutt has both in abundance. A great book that I highly recommend and will greatly enjoy re-reading.
Format:Paperback
I recently took a writing sabbatical and did something I'd been promising myself for some years - to re-read Michael Cassutt's three superb techno-thrillers. I've read Crichton and Clancy, but for me Cassutt is the third "C" in this genre, and one whose works I particularly enjoy as spaceflight history is something very near and dear to my heart, and the subject of many of my own books. He is a gifted writer, and this is a beautifully-paced, well-written story that is very closely based on contemporary spaceflight matters and philosophies. I think in another five years I will retrieve this and the other two books ("Missing Man" and "Red Moon") from my bookshelf once again and enjoy them all over again. I might also add that as a writer I also rely very heavily on Michael's non-fiction books on spaceflight history - they are regarded by me and many others as the definitive source of reliable and well-presented facts.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Great stuff!
Really good, gripping book that kept me reading until the last page. Very timely with all the changes about what might happen in the space program. I liked this book a lot. Read more
Published on 25 Jan 2008 by Splenda
Bravo Tango!
I recently took a writing sabbatical and did something I'd been promising myself for some years - to re-read Michael Cassutt's three superb techno-thrillers. Read more
Published on 30 Dec 2007 by Colin Burgess
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