Red Moon

This much is fact: on July 13, 1969, three days before Apollo 11 lifted off from Cape Canaveral, a spaceship blasted off from the Soviet Union. Soviet records claim Luna 15 was a failed robotic probe. But this was a deception planted to cover up the USSR’s last attempt to beat America in the moon race. On board is Grigor Belinsky, a cosmonaut so disillusioned with his nation’s regime that he must be blackmailed into flying the one-way mission. RED MOON reveals Belinsky’s untold journey from Soviet hero to dissident and martyr.

RED MOON opens in July 2019 with the lunar landing of a multinational mission on the Sea of Crises. American astronaut Janet Luckman leads a team in search of a Mother Lode of lunar ice laced with Helium 3--a desperately needed energy source. The future of humanity rides on Luckman’s success. She unexpectedly finds the lunar lander Firebird and recovers the flight log, but the cosmonaut has disappeared. Luckman senses that his fate is linked to the elusive Mother Lode and she races the clock to simultaneously solve these two mysteries. Her ship must blast off in 51 hours or miss its return window to Earth. But a traitor in her crew will stop at nothing--including murdering her--to sabotage the mission and bury the secret of the Firebird forever.

The discovery on the moon ignites a firestorm on Earth as both American and Russian authorities attempt to cover it up. NASA dispatches renowned scientist Milo Jefferson to Moscow to investigate the Firebird mystery. Jefferson finds himself in a hall of mirrors created by the sinister genius who leads Russia’s new Tsarist government--a man who knows the revelation of Belinsky’s fate could topple his regime--a man who will risk the fate of humanity in his attempt to destroy the truth.

David S. Michaels is a journalist and historian who has written numerous articles on technology, space flight, and world history. A California native, he now resides in Lancaster, PA with his wife and three daughters. RED MOON, his first novel, is based on seven years’ research into the secret Soviet lunar program.