Voyage (89 page)

So ended the tortuous post-Apollo decision-making process. In January 1972 Nixon initiated the Shuttle project, not a Mars program.

Mars was lost. But so, nearly, had been the Shuttle – the last, compromised, element of the STG’s grand vision – and with it, the US manned space program.

In the pages of
Voyage,
the survival of President Kennedy in 1963 pushed history onto a track which diverged from our own trajectory: slowly, but sufficiently far, in the end, for the US space
program to reach out to Mars. The decision-making points depicted in
Voyage
closely parallel those in our own world. It could – with a small perturbation – have happened like this.

But even if the argument for Mars had been ‘won’ in
1969,
it would have been essential to maintain a supportive coalition of political forces behind a Mars program over the years, or decades, it would have taken to implement it – a period during which downward pressure on NASA’s budget was consistent. To reach Mars, NASA would have needed a Fred Michaels: another Webb – not another Paine.

And in many ways, an Apollo-style Mars program could have been a mixed blessing.

As Nixon foresaw, if the Mars program had come about NASA would have been able to remain a one-shot, ‘heroic’ agency, rather than move to the organizational maturity for which current Administrator Dan Goldin is still reaching. On the science side, Apollo dominated other space programs in the 1960s – often to their detriment. The Lunar Orbiter and Surveyor lander programs were effectively downgraded to serve as mappers for Apollo. Perhaps, if the Mars option had been followed, Viking might have been compromised in a similar fashion, and unrelated programs – such as the unmanned exploration of the outer planets – might have been put under even greater funding pressure.

On the other hand, the abandonment of Mars and NASA’s other great plans did
not
free up funds for other projects; the funds simply did not make themselves available at all. If a Mars program had gone ahead, it would surely have brought many benefits in its wake, such as the need for the US to build up expertise in orbital assembly and long-duration missions.

And in the end, we cannot help but regret the loss of the great spectacle we should have enjoyed had Natalie York walked on Mars at Mangala Vallis in 1986.

Stephen Baxter

VOYAGE

Stephen Baxter was born in 1957. Raised in Liverpool, he has a mathematics degree from the University of Cambridge and a Ph.D from Southampton. He sold his first short stories to
Interzone
in 1986 and his first novel,
Raft
, was published in 1991, to great acclaim.
Voyage
is his seventh novel. He is married and lives in Buckinghamshire.

‘Tom Clancy meets Tom Wolfe.’

Kirkus Reviews

‘If you liked
The Right Stuff
you’ll like this too.’

Interzone

‘Voyage
is a splendid nostalgia trip to times when astronauts were still the Right Stuff.’

New Scientist

‘For SF fans it encapsulates not only the traditional “sense of wonder”, but also – because the story it tells was this close to being true – a warm and thrilling sense of “I wonder …” A brilliant book.’

SFX

‘Based on NASA’s actual shelved Mars plans, but throughout, Baxter concentrates on the people involved, not just their hi-tech ventures, and the result is a compulsive and intelligent page-turner.’

Focus

‘Baxter is emerging as the most credible heir to the hard sf tradition previously monopolized by Clarke and Asimov.’

Time Out

Novels and stories in the Xeelee Sequence

RAFT
TIMELIKE INFINITY
FLUX
RING
VACUUM DIAGRAMS

ANTI-ICE
THE TIME SHIPS
TITAN
TRACES
MOONSEED
TIME
SPACE
ORIGIN
PHASE SPACE

In 1996, evidence of life on Mars has ignited interest in manned missions to the red planet, but such missions are many years, perhaps decades away. But NASA could have sent astronauts to Mars as long ago as 1986.

Voyage
depicts an alternate history: a timeline identical to our own up to a crucial moment in the autumn of 1963, and diverging thereafter.

This novel is a work of fiction. Because of the nature of the plot certain real people associated with the US manned space program are referred to in the story by their real names. For the purposes of weaving my story into the fabric of our own history I have replaced some historical personages with fictional characters. In particular, the second American to orbit Earth was Scott Carpenter, not Chuck Jones as portrayed in the novel; and the second man to walk on the Moon was Buzz Aldrin, not Joe Muldoon as portrayed here. All other characters are fictional constructs, in which case any resemblance to any real individual is wholly unintentional and coincidental.

I would like to acknowledge the invaluable help of Simon Bradshaw, Eric Brown and Calvin Johnson, all of whom read and commented on versions of the manuscript; and the staff at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Houston, who were extremely generous of their time and energy in support of my research for this book, particularly Eileen Hawley, Paul Dye, Frank Hughes, astronaut Michael Foale, and especially Kent Joosten of JSC’s Solar System Exploration Division who scrutinized my Mars mission with great attention and care. The assistance of these friends has greatly improved the accuracy of my depiction, and any remaining errors and omissions are my responsibility.

In our history, Americans have not traveled to Mars. But in 1969
the US came as close as it ever has to assembling the will and resources for such a mission. Diagrams at the end of the book show how the mission might have been assembled. In an afterword, for interested readers, I have set out my understanding of the crucial historical points at which America turned away from Mars.

In 1996 we need scientists on Mars. They could have been there a decade ago. My novel may be the closest thing to a history of that lost, alternate universe ever to be written, and I have striven to make it as ‘true’ as possible.

It really would have been like this.

Stephen Baxter
Great Missenden
August 1996

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Voyager
An Imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers
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This paperback edition 1997

First published in Great Britain by
Voyager
1996

Copyright © Stephen Baxter 1996

The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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