The Return by Buzz Aldrin and John Barnes
Published by Forge
Reviewed by Leigh Kimmel
When I look at this novel, it makes me think of everything that's been wrong with NASA and America's space program for the last four decades. Our local library has it shelved in the science fiction section, yet it's most emphatically not science fiction. Everything in it is based upon technology that actually existed (or could be built with existing technology) in the year it was written. Yes, there were some things that were bleeding-edge tech, and some jury-rigging of equipment in the emergency that's the climactic sequence of the novel, but pretty much everything could have been done in 2000. Just two years later, Elon Musk would found SpaceX, which has now successfully sent US astronauts to the International Space Station on a private spacecraft and booster. And the camera the protagonist is boasting about in the second chapter, with all its autocorrection capabilities, now feels rather Zeerusty for the simple fact that it's pretty obviously a film camera, not a digital camera -- otherwise, why would they say it "printed a slug line" on each image rather than fixing the necessary information in metadata?
In other words, this novel is a techno-thriller in the tradition of Tom Clancy and Ken Follett. In fact, Crag Thomas's Firefox, with its thought-controlled weapons, was closer to a hard-sf novel when it was written in 1977 (although the technology is being developed, as witnessed by Neurosky's Necomimi brainwave cat ears, beloved of catgirl cosplayers everywhere). But because Dr. Aldrin's novel deals with spaceflight, it's automatically slotted into "that crazy Buck Rogers stuff," never mind that the Space Shuttle was supposed to make access to space as routine as air transportation back in the 1980's. Put simply, our culture is still presupposing the pre-Copernican view of the Earth (and its atmosphere) as the realm of mundane human activity and outer space as "the Heavens," the realm of quintessence, where humans come only as visitors, or even trespassers.
I originally read this novel not long after the 2003 Columbia disaster, so reading the account of a fictional crash of the Space Shuttle orbiter of that name was rather poignant, if nowhere near as disastrous. In the fictional version, the dear old queen of the Space Shuttle fleet has been bought out by ShareSpace, an organization dedicated to taking ordinary people into space as part of a long-term program to open space to all humanity rather than the scientific and military elite. When one thinks about it, the idea wasn't all that wild an extrapolation of where space travel might have gone. Columbia didn't have the equipment to dock with the International Space Station, so shifting it to space tours wasn't out of the realm of possibility in those days.
On the fictional disastrous flight, they are carrying Michael James, a world renown retired basketball player (obviously a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Michael Jordan), into space. While they are preparing for a publicity activity that helps fund these missions, something goes terribly wrong and MJ and astronaut Marc Clement are killed. By dint of good fortune Columbia is able to get safely to ground (albeit with some serious damage to the spacecraft when its landing gear hits a pothole on the ill-maintained emergency runway) and the other five astronauts survive, but MJ's family and friends raise a hue and cry that he was needlessly endangered.
As the investigation proceeds, things become steadily more sinister. Was this more than a tragic accident, a chance intersection with a micrometeoroid or a bit of space junk? Did someone want MJ dead? If so, why?
Suddenly ShareSpace and its top echelons are in serious trouble. They've gone from being the heroes of everyone who's dreamed of spaceflight but didn't have that righteous Right Stuff for NASA to being suspect of complicity in the murder of a beloved sports icon.
And then things get even worse. Tensions between India and Pakistan are heating up, and it's growing increasingly obvious that no, this is not going to be just another episode of saber-rattling. This time they're both serious about giving the other side a good shellacking.
The next thing our heroes know, one of Pakistan's Chinese military advisors sets of something called a "proton bomb" -- the only thing that really can be called science fiction, since the narrative voice is rather vague on how it works. One thing is for certain: it's incredibly devastating. It fills the upper atmosphere and near-Earth space with hard radiation, wiping out satellites and flooding the ISS with deadly radiation.
Maybe the authors were intending to have it be something similar to the Operation Fishbowl series of high-altitude nuclear tests in 1962, only done deliberately as an act of war to take out Indian electronics with a burst of EMP. In that case, it would still fall into the domain of the techno-thriller, since such a device would certainly be well within known nuclear weapons technology. However, I'm uncertain why it should be called a "proton bomb," when it's pretty clearly an enhanced-EMP device. On the other hand, with these kinds of high-profile collaborations, it's often an open question just how much the senior author actually contributes to the writing. If the junior collaborator isn't overly strong on the technology side, and the senior author doesn't give the manuscript a close going-over to catch technical gaffes, it's completely possible that Mr. Barnes decided to just make up a cool-sounding term for a super-powerful bomb that ends up doing more damage than intended (similar to Asimov's "positronic brains" as the next step beyond electronic computers).
With the astronauts on the ISS in bad shape, the biggest priority is finding some way to get them back down safely -- and quickly. It becomes clear that NASA isn't going to be able to get any of their Space Shuttle orbiters up there before the astronauts' condition deteriorates to the point it won't be possible to save them. As it is, they'll be permanently injured, probably sterile, and at very high risk for future cancers, even if they can be brought down.
Into the breach comes our heroes with StarBird, a privately-built spacecraft and launch system that seems strongly reminiscent of Sierra Nevada Corporation's Dream Chaser spacecraft, albeit set up for operation by a human crew. It's going to be extremely tricky, especially since they're going to be using a bunch of water bags as makeshift radiation shielding. Not to mention that about half their equipment for docking with the ISS and retrieving the astronauts is makeshift, and neither of the guys who are doing the spacewalk have any EVA experience.
The rest of the novel is an edge-of-the-seat blow-by-blow account of the mission, flying into a closing launch window, retrieving people who are seriously ill with radiation sickness, and getting them back home to Earth, all without getting themselves exposed to so much deadly radiation that they'll end up sick, or permanently grounded in an abundance of caution.
Yes, it does have a happy ending -- and the heroism of the protagonists even leads MJ's family to give up their lawsuit, to accept that he was engaging in a risky activity and no matter how careful one's safety precautions are, there is always a chance of that golden BB that hits exactly the wrong spot.
Buy The Return from Amazon.com
Review posted March 12, 2021
