Can an experimental defense system stop North Korean missile strikes?

Nobody foresaw that millions would watch on real-time TV when people first walked on another world. And next time…?

Da osservazioni raccolte sulla Terra risulta che in orbita attorno a Giove c’è qualcosa da cui cominciano a pervenire dei segnali. Un ufo? La deduzione sembrerebbe inevitabile, dal momento che nessuna astronave terrestre è mai ancora arrivata laggiù. Ma...Ma queste non sono praticamente le stesse parole con cui abbiamo presentato nello scorso numero Segnali da Giove di Zach Hughes?Il fatto è che Ben Bova e Zach Hughes per una straordinaria coincidenza hanno scritto e pubblicato contemporaneamente due romanzi che partono dalle stesse premesse pur arrivando a conclusioni diversissime. Veda dunque il lettore quali delle due preferisce e tenga conto d’altra parte che il complesso, ricchissimo romanzo di Bova è quasi tre volte più lungo di quello di Hughes e negli USA costa più del doppio, mentre in URANIA costa naturalmente lo stesso. Un’occasione da non perdere.

Essays by space scientists and engineers teamed with a collection of tales by an all-star assortment of award winning authors all taking on new methods of star travel.Some humans may be content staying in one place, but many of us are curious about what's beyond the next village, the next ocean, the next horizon. Are there others like us out there? How will we reach them? Others are concerned with the survival of the species. It may be that we have to get out of Dodge before the lights go out on Earth. How can we accomplish this?Wonderful questions. Now get ready for some answers. Here is the science behind interstellar propulsion: reports from top tier scientists and engineers on starflight propulsion techniques that use only means and methods that we currently know are scientifically possible. Here are in-depth essays on antimatter containment, solar sails, and fusion propulsion. And the human consequences? Here is speculation by a magnificent array of award-winning SF writers on what an interstellar voyage might look like, might feel like - might be like. It's an all-star cast abounding with Hugo and Nebula award winners: Ben Bova, Mike Resnick, Jack McDevitt, Michael Bishop, Sarah Hoyt and more.

Suppose that elves, gremlins, and leprechauns are really tiny aliens marooned on Earth for hundreds of years. They want to go home, and human technology finally can make it possible—if they can get aboard NASA’s Mars rocket and hijack it! Pity the poor human who has to help them with the big heist…

Grant Archer merely wanted to work quietly as an astronomer on the far side of the moon. But a coalition of censorious do-gooders who run 21st century America sends him to a research station in orbit around Jupiter to spy on the scientists who work there. What they don’t know is that Grant’s loyalty to science may be greater than his loyalty to the New Morality.

Era notte nell'emisfero occidentale quando il Sole emise la sua grande fiammata, e questo salvò il continente americano dalla combustione totale. Ma non lo salvò dalle atomiche sovietiche che cominciarono subito a piovere. Perché, chi avrebbe potuto dar torto ai pochi russi superstiti sottoterra, nella stanza dei bottoni, se pensarono che l'attacco fosse venuto dall'America?

Das größte Abenteuer der Menschheit steht unmittelbar bevor: die erste bemannte Mars-Mission. Dies ist ihre Geschichte, eine Geschichte von menschlicher Größe und Tragik - und von der unglaublichsten Entdeckung aller Zeiten.«Ein atemberaubendes Buch!» Ray BradburyÜber den AutorBen Bova, 1932 in Philadelphia geboren, ist einer der bekanntesten Science-Fiction-Autoren unserer Zeit. Insbesondere mit seinen Romanen aus der sogenannten Sonnensytem-Reihe „Mars“, „Venus“, „Jupiter“ und zuletzt „Saturn“ ist er außerordentlich erfolgreich. Bova lebt mit seiner Familie in Florida.

It’s not easy running a hotel, and some of the most challenging problems are little ones!

Ben Bova’s timeless hero returns . . . at the nexus of myth and history!More than human, less than god, Orion has fought across time and space at the whims of his Creators, god-like beings from the future who toy with human history like spoiled children playing with dolls. From the frozen wastes of the Ice Age to far-flung interstellar empires, Orion has been both assassin and hero, all the while striving to be reunited with Anya, the ageless goddess who is his one true love.Now Orion finds himself in Britain in the dark years after the Romans abandoned the island kingdom. Minor kings and warlords feud amongst themselves even as invading hordes of Saxons and Angles threaten to sweep over the land. There Orion befriends a young warrior named Arthur, who dreams of uniting his quarreling countrymen and driving the invaders from their lands. Along with a few brave comrades, Arthur hopes to the stem the tide of barbarism and create a new era of peace and prosperity.But Orion’s vainglorious Creator, Aten the Golden One, has other plans for the timeline. Arthur’s noble ambitions interfere with Aten’s far-reaching schemes to reshape history to his own ends. He wants Arthur dead and forgotten---but Orion does not.Defying his own creator, and risking his own immortal existence, Orion will battle the gods themselves to see that Arthur fulfills his destiny. But can even he save Arthur from the tragedy that awaits him?Orion and King Arthuris a thrilling new chapter in Ben Bova’s unforgettable cosmic saga.

DAS GRÖSSTE ABENTEUER DER MENSCHHEIT GEHT WEITER.In ›Mars‹ schilderte Ben Bova die abenteuerliche Geschichte der ersten bemannten Mars-Mission.Nun, einige Jahre später, kehrt ein Team aus Astronauten, Ingenieuren und Wissenschaftlern zum sagenumwobenen Roten Planeten zurück. Geleitet wird diese Expedition von Jamie Waterman, der bereits auf der ersten Reise dabei war und auf dem Mars Spuren intelligenten Lebens entdeckt hatte. Er hat es sich zu seiner Aufgabe gemacht, das Geheimnis unseres Nachbarplaneten zu lüften, und er würde alles dafür hergeben – selbst sein eigenes Leben.

Cities became ovens. Grasslands became seas of flame. As the touch of dawn swept westward across the spinning planet Earth, its fiery finger killed everything in its path. Glaciers in Switzerland began to melt, floodwaters poured down on the burning, smoking villages dotting the Alpine meadows. Paris became a torch, then London. North of the Arctic Circle, Lapplanders in their summer furs burst into flame as their reindeer collapsed and roasted on the smoking tundra.The line of dawn raced westward across the Atlantic Ocean, but as it did the brightness diminished. The sun dimmed as quickly as it had brightened.The Americas escaped the Sun’s wrath. Almost. A hard, dark book, the story of mankind after the fall… compulsive reading… the battle to rebuild Earth after its almost total destruction by a gigantic solar flare.Harry HarrisonPart of this novel was published separately, in substantially different form, as ‘When The Sky Burned’, copyright © 1973 by Ben Bova.

Just in time for spring training, two power hitters return to our pages. Ben Bova not only writes about the future, he has helped create it. The author of more than eighty-five futuristic novels and nonfiction books, he has been involved in science and high technology since the very beginnings of the space program. President Emeritus of the National Space Society and a past president of SFWA, Dr. Bova is a frequent commentator on radio and television, and a widely popular lecturer. He has also been an award-winning editor and an executive in the aerospace industry. Rick Wilber has sold about a hundred short stories and poems, and over one thousand nonfiction articles. He is the SF reviewer for the St. Petersburg Times, and he edits the Fiction Quarterly for the Tampa Tribune. Mr. Wilber is a faculty member of the School of Mass Communications at the University of South Florida. He is also administrator of the Isaac Asimov Award for excellence in undergraduate writing that is co-sponsored by the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts and by this magazine.

Lukka, a Hittite warrior, returns to the Hittite capital city to find it engulfed in civil war, his father murdered, and his wife and two young sons taken away by slavers. Along with a small cadre of soldiers under his command, Lukka launches an epic search for his family, which leads him to the gates of Troy as it is beseiged by the army of Agamemnon. Bova then proceeds to an original retelling of the final stages of the legendary Trojan War. In this account, Lukka serves as a literary mirror, revealing the personalities of some well-known characters, with a few surprising results. Odysseus, predictably, is practical, crafty, and a natural survivor in treacherous waters. Achilles is a born killer, but he is shown as short and ugly, and his death is decidedly unheroic. Helen is, of course, the babe of all babes, but she is also petty and whiny.

The dynamic new President of the United States, James J. Halliday, seems determined to singlehandedly turn an embittered nation around from economic, political, and social ruin. No one could be prouder than his devoted press secretary Meric Albano. But is the President accomplishing this monumental task alone? After one of the President’s rare public appearances, a derelict is found dead nearby. A derelict who not only looks like the President, but whose blood, retinas, even fingerprints match those of the man in charge. Is the real President, the man Albano swore loyalty to, still in office? Is this part of a plot to topple American democracy? That’s what Albano has to find out—if he doesn’t, his life, as well as his country, will be destroyed…

The irrepressible Sam Gunn.A hero without peer or scruples, Sam Gunn has a nose for trouble, money, and women--though not necessarily in that order. A man with the ego (and stature) of a Napoleon, the business acumen of a P. T. Barnum, and the raging hormones of a teenage boy, Sam is the finest astronaut NASA ever trained…and dumped.But more than money, more than women, Sam Gunn loves justice. (And he really *does* love money and women.) Whether he's suing the Pope, helping twin sisters entangled in the "virtual sex" trade, or on trial for his life on charges of interplanetary genocide, you can be sure of one thing: this is one space jockey who'll meet every challenge with a smile on his lips, an ace up his sleeve…and a weapon in his pocket.Now, for the first time between covers, Hugo-winner Ben Bova presents all the tales of Sam Gunn to date, including three never before collected in book form. Here is the entire chronicle of Sam Gunn, trailblazer and scoundrel, as he scams his way from one end of the Solar System to the other, giving bold new meaning to the term “venture capitalist.”