Titan

Alternative Worlds

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Titan
Ben Bova
Tor, Mar 2006, $25.95, 464 pp.
ISBN: 0765304139

In 2095, the man-made space habitat Goddard with ten thousand on board also goes into orbit around Saturn. The Goddard sends explorer spacecraft Titan Alpha to the surface of the Saturn moon of TITAN seeking evidence of any form of life in the black ice frozen seas or the island that make up the orb. However, something goes wrong with the probe leaving chief scientist Edouard Urbain to defend what happened and to gain support to salvage the mission.

Meanwhile Goddard’s leader Malcolm Eberly turns to the rings for what he hopes will prove a strong investment even as he wants to shut down Urbain’s wasted project because feels no money can be made from one cell life forms or other endangered species that reside in the way of progress and development. Former CEO Pancho Lane plans to stop Malcolm from exploiting and strip mining the rings even if it means a suicide ride into space to succeed. His sister and Malcolm’s ex lover Holly Lane worry over the welfare of the colonists as incidents begin to happen that could ultimately prove lethal.

Ben Bova’s latest Grand Tour of the solar system is an intriguing tale in which the extrapolation from current scientific information on Titan leads to terrific hypotheses that outstrips in many ways the human aspects of the story line. Fans will gain plenty of understanding about conditions on Titan, the Saturn rings, and to a lesser degree the planet from Mr. Bova’s usual delightful theorizing extracted from the known information. Though the conflicts between the Goddard leaders never take charge of the plot and their resolution seems too simple for these fiery adversaries, no one explores outer space quite like Mr. Bova does.
 

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