Titan – Baxter, Stephen

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Having examined the space program that might have been in Voyage, Stephen Baxter now turns his attention to the future and the space program which might still be. Timed to (roughly) correspond to the launch of the Cassini space probe, Titan looks at the possibility of a manned expedition to Saturn’s largest moon.

The novel opens at the seemingly low point of the United States space program. China has just launched their first orbital flight when JPL

announces the possibility of life on Titan and the shuttle Columbia crashes at Edwards. The NASA administrator, a short-sighted accountant, plans to use the Columbia crash as an excuse to mothball the agency, turn NASA’s functions over to the Department of Agriculture (?) and use his “success” at NASA to launch him into a White House advisory position.

Baxter’s apparent view of American society and politics is pessimistic in the extreme. He sees the current crop of American youth growing up to be directionless and Luddite-like. The Democrat he has in the oval office in 2003 is so inept that everyone in the nation, not only knows that the Republicans will take the White House in 2004, but even know who will take it (early in the novel he refers to the fact that Maclachlan will win in 2004). Baxter’s version of the United States Air Force seems to be made up of paranoid, almost rogue, military men.