Alpha Bug

Ex-astronaut Joe Dover is called back to active duty after the Soviets launch the prototype of a highly advanced space weapon that can dominate the skies above the earth and neutralize America's vast arsenal of ICBMs

When he loses an eye heroically crash-landing the shuttle, 36-year-old Joe Dover is retired by NASA. But he is suddenly recalled to active duty to help the Space Command analyze a new and astonishing Russian spacecraft. Nicknamed the Alpha Bug, it can perform multiple orbit changes almost at will with a secret power source and innovative maneuvering system. Dover, who is fluent in Russian, goes off to the Soviet Union with a cover provided by the CIA and a camera in the shape of an eyeball fitted into his empty socket. The mission accomplished, Dover is ordered to undertake an even more desperate action: piloting a malfunctioning Alpha Bug from its orbit into the West. The true center of the book is not the redoubtable Dover but the technology he must comprehend. Lethal science and derring-do orbit at equal speeds in this thriller, but much of it defies credibility.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.