James A Michener's "Space" (novel): Fictionalized history of US space program till about 1980

This post begins an experiment. During the last few months, I've abandoned a lot of novels half way through - just don't have patience to finish. Where I have finished them, I don't feel like writing about them - takes too long. So I keep posting about short works, but keep avoiding posts of longer ones. May be doing it in small units will help.

I'll be posting on this novel a chapter at a time, & link specific chapter posts from here. Chapters themselves are big - probably more than novella length each.

From the look of it till the end of first chapter, it promises to be a hard sf book - even if by a man without science background!

Chapters.

1. Four men: Introduces Prof Stanley Mott, Norman Grant (a US WWII hero), John Pope (a young prodigy), & Dieter Kolff (a maverick with the gadgets). They're presumably key characters in rest of the story.
   
2. Four women - part 1 & part 2: Part 1 is about Grant getting elected to US Senate, & suggests that he will specialize in legislative affairs of aviation. Part 2 is about absorption of German engineers & missile technology by US. Title comes from their wives, two of whom we meet for the first time: Elinor Stidham is wife of Grant & a woman of low self esteem; Rachel Lindquist is Mott's wife. Other two women were already seen in ch 1: Penny Hardesty will not only marry Pope & become a lawyer, she'll get involved in US Senate offices in Washington; Liesl Koenig will join Dieter in US & will lead the Germans establish a settlement in Huntsville, Alabama.
   
3. Korea: Not read.
4. Pax river: Not read.
5. Intellectual decisions: Not read.
6. Twins: Not read.
7. The moon: Not read.
8. Real time: Not read.
9. Dark side of the moon: Not read.
10. Mars: Not read.
11. The rings of Saturn: Not read.

Fact sheet.

First published: 1983.
Related: All posts about this novel on a single page; feed that collects only posts about this novel.