''Kings of the High Frontier'' is a

hard science fiction Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell's '' Islands of Space'' in the Novem ...

novel by American writer

Victor Koman Victor Koman (born August 9, 1954) is an American science fiction and fantasy writer and agorist. A three-time winner of the Prometheus Award, Koman is mainly popular in the libertarian community. He is the owner of the publishing house KoPubCo. ...

, first published (electronically) in 1996.

Summary

The story is a

polemic Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topics ...

about

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

. The thesis is that NASA, far from helping space exploration, actually prevents it from going forth. The narrative follows disparate engineering efforts, ranging from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

engineering students working out of a warehouse in the

Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

to full-fledged commercial rocket operations, to create a single-stage to orbit reusable launch vehicle. All of the science and equipment used in the story was based on technology that existed at the time of writing, like the

space activity suit A mechanical counterpressure (MCP) suit, partial pressure suit, direct compression suit, or space activity suit (SAS) is an experimental spacesuit which applies stable pressure against the skin by means of skintight elastic garments. The SAS is ...

Editions

The novel was first published electronically by

J. Neil Schulman Joseph Neil Schulman (; April 16, 1953 – August 10, 2019) was an American novelist who wrote ''Alongside Night'' (published 1979) and '' The Rainbow Cadenza'' (published 1983) which both received the Prometheus Award, a libertarian science fict ...

's pulpless.com in 1996. It has since been published in hardcover by Bereshith Publishing in 1998, first in a "deluxe edition" of 250, then as a regular hardcover in a small print-run of 1250 copies. , there is no paperback edition. KoPubCo released a
ebook edition
in 2017, with significant changes by the author.

External links

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1996 science fiction novels 1996 novels Hard science fiction {{1990s-sf-novel-stub