Бен Бова — библиография

В район Юпитера прилетел космический корабль инопланетян. Они проводят исследования солнечной системы, а в награду за это обещают людям ответить на единственный вопрос на любую тему, который люди им зададут к определенному сроку. Обсуждением возможных вопросов была парализована вся земная деятельность, дело дошло до вооруженных конфликтов – а единого варианта все не находилось...

The planet closest to our Sun, Mercury is a rocky, barren, heat-scorched world. But there are those who hope to find wealth in its desolation. Saito Yamagata thinks Mercury's position makes it an ideal place to generate power to propel starships into deep space. Astrobiologist Victor Molina thinks the water at Mercury's poles may harbor evidence of life. Bishop Elliot Danvers has been sent by the Earth-based "New Morality" to keep close tabs on Molina. But all three of these men are blissfully unaware of their shared history, and of how it connects to the collapse of Mance Bracknell's geosynchronous space elevator a generation ago. Now they're about to find out, because Mance is determined to have his revenge…

Now, with Titan, Ben Bova takes readers to one of the most intriguing destinations in near space: the extraordinary moon of Saturn which made international headlines last year when the Huygens probe sent back remarkable images of its strange landscapes. 2095. After long months of travel, the gigantic colony ship Goddard has at last made orbit around Saturn, carrying a population of more than of 10,000 dissidents, rebels, extremists, and visionaries seeking a new life. Among Goddard's missions is the study of Titan, which offers the tantalizing possibility that life may exist amid its windswept islands and chill black seas. When the exploration vessel Titan Alpha mysteriously fails after reaching the moon's surface, long buried tensions surface among the colonists. Eduoard Urbain, the mission's chief scientist, is wracked with anxiety and despair as he sees his life's work unravel. Malcolm Eberly, Goddard's chief administrator, takes ruthless measures to hold onto power as a rash of suspicious incidents threaten to undermine his authority. Holly Lane, the colony's human-resources director, must confront the station's powerful leaders to protect the lives of its people. And retired astronaut Manuel Gaeta is forced to risk his life in a last, desperate attempt to salvage the lost probe. Torn by intrigue, sabotage, and an awesome discovery that could threaten human space exploration, a handful of courageous men and women must fight for the survival of their colony, and for the destiny of the human race.

Second in size only to Jupiter, bigger than a thousand Earths but light enough to float in water, home of crushing gravity and delicate, seemingly impossible rings, it dazzles and attracts us: SATURN Earth groans under the thumb of fundamentalist political regimes. Crisis after crisis has given authoritarians the upper hand. Freedom and opportunity exist in space, for those with the nerve and skill to run the risks. Now the governments of Earth are encouraging many of their most incorrigible dissidents to join a great ark on a one-way expedition, twice Jupiter's distance from the Sun, to Saturn, the ringed planet that baffled Galileo and has fascinated astronomers ever since. But humans will be human, on Earth or in the heavens-so amidst the idealism permeating Space Habitat Goddard are many individuals with long-term schemes, each awaiting the tight moment. And hidden from them is the greatest secret of all, the real purpose of this expedition, known to only a few....

It is early in the next century. The Soviet Union controls the heavens, and holds the world hostage through superiority in space weapons. America is a nation in decline, retreating from its place as a leader of the world. Dan Randolph, former astronaut and engineer, is one of the world’s richest men, as famed for his romantic conquests as for his vast fortune made through the mining of space. Driven from the U.S. by the collapse of its space program, shut out of the rich resources of the moon by the Russian-dominated International Astronautical Council, Randolph establishes a base in Venezuela to tap the untold wealth of the asteroid belt. But the Russians are willing to take brutal measures, including treachery, sabotage and murder, to preserve their hegemony. Soon Randolph is pitted in a deadly cat-and-mouse game against Vasily Malik, the young and ruthless Commissar of Space—not only for mankind’s future but for a diplomat’s beautiful daughter they both desire. Forced to operate outside the law, Randolph becomes a latter-day buccaneer, striking back at the Russians to raise the stakes in this deadly game. Privateers is a riveting tale of high adventure that sweeps from the plantations of South America to the boardrooms of Japan; from the Oval Office of America’s first woman president, to the stark reaches of the high frontier.

Jupiter is a boundless ocean, ten times wider than the entire planet Earth. Heated from below by the planet's seething core, it is the widest, deepest, most fearsome ocean in the solar system.
Idealistic young American scientist Grant Archer joins a clandestine expedition to this awesome new world. But Grant does not share the ideals of the scientists he accompanies: he has been planted on their expedition by the New Morality, a religious group that wants to ferret out what the 'godless humanists' have discovered. His mission: to reassure the new religious leaders of Earth that Jupiter holds no intelligent life.
But unknown to the New Morality, Grant, though the son of a minister, is both a believer and a man who sees no reason why science and faith can not co-exist. He has come to the vast, planet-girdling ocean of Jupiter with an open mind, and he is about to tell his masters something that may shatter their conviction.

Hugo Award winner Ben Bova continues his grand tour of the human settled solar system with a fan-pleasing look at life in the Outer Planets, among the moons of Neptune. In the future, humanity has spread throughout the solar system, on planets and moons once visited only by robots or explored at a distance by far-voyaging spacecraft. No matter how hostile or welcoming the environment, mankind has forged a path and found a home. In the far reaches of the solar system, the outer planets―billions of miles from Earth, unknown for millennia―are being settled. Neptune, the ice giant, is swathed in clouds of hydrogen, helium, and methane and circled by rings of rock and dust. Three years ago, Ilona Magyr’s father, Miklos, disappeared while exploring the seas of Neptune. Everyone believes he is dead―crushed, frozen, or boiled alive in Neptune’s turbulent seas. With legendary space explorer Derek Humbolt piloting her ship and planetary scientist Jan Meitner guiding the search, Ilona Magyr knows she will find her father―alive―on Neptune. Her plans are irrevocably altered when she and her team discover the wreckage of an alien ship deep in Neptune’s ocean, a discovery which changes humanity’s understanding of its future…and its past.

On a privately financed orbital habitat above the planet Uranus, political idealism conflicts with pragmatic, and illegal, methods of financing. Add a scientist who has funding to launch a probe deep into Uranus's ocean depths to search for signs of life, and you have a three-way struggle for control. Humans can't live on the gas giants, making instead a life in orbit. Kyle Umber, a religious idealist, has built Haven, a sanctuary above the distant planet Uranus. He invites "the tired, the sick, the poor" of Earth to his orbital retreat where men and women can find spiritual peace and refuge from the world. The billionaire who financed Haven, however, has his own designs: beyond the reach of the laws of the inner planets Haven could become the center for an interplanetary web of narcotics, prostitution, even hunting human prey. Meanwhile a scientist has gotten funding from the Inner Planets to drop remote probes into the "oceans" of Uranus, in search of life. He brings money and prestige, but he also brings journalists and government oversight to Haven. And they can't have that.