Voyage — Stephen Baxter

In this sci-fi alternate history, JFK's planned mission to Mars embarks on an intrepid journey -- “a wonderful, patriotic tale of lost possibility” (Kirkus).

In Voyage, Stephen Baxter imagines how, if President Kennedy had lived, America might have gone on to send a manned mission to Mars in the 1980s. Created from true lives and real events, this richly detailed novel returns to the geniuses of NASA and the excitement of the Saturn rocket. Historical figures from Neil Armstrong to Ronald Reagan are interwoven with unforgettable characters who embody the promise of a young space program that held the world in thrall.

This sprawling tale tells the story of Gregory Dana, a Nazi camp survivor who achieves the dream of his hated masters; Gershon, the Vietnam fighter jock determined to be the first African-American to land on another planet; and Natalie York, the brilliant geologist/astronaut who risks love and career for the chance to run her fingers through the soil of another world.