Ben Bova's Kinsman. Throughout the Sixties and Seventies, Bova wrote a series of stories about Chet Kinsman, astronaut. He assembled these stories, with revisions and new material as this fix-up novel.

Chet Kinsman, born of an aristocratic, influential Quaker family, defied tradition and joined the Air Force. Not to fight, but to be free of the bonds of Earth, first by flying, then by making his way into the space program. His adventures include increasingly hazardous training exercises, a hilarious first attempt at lovemaking in orbit, and a dramatic rescue on the Moon. He rose rapidly enough to be entrusted with an emergency mission, the inspection of a secret Soviet Satellite. But the satellite was guarded, and Kinsman became the first human to kill another in space. His career and dreams in ruins, Kinsman regroups and determines to save what he can , as public interest swung away from space.