What is Tube Town?

I’m very happy to announce that my new book, Tube Town – Frontier is now available on Amazon! It is available in paperback or in Ebook. The book is near-term hard science fiction. It centers on getting to Mars by returning to the Moon and why using a lava tube as a base could be a good idea. All the technology described in the book has been painstakingly researched to be plausible. I’ve tried very hard not to break the laws of physics- but in a few places, I may have come right up to the line.

Tube Town – Frontier on Amazon

In 2028, as interest in the Moon again wanes, an intact sub-surface lava tube is discovered. The lava tube is converted to a Moon base and naïve and idealistic young Commander Billy Nguyen of the newly-formed International Space Program is placed in charge of Moon Base 3 which everyone calls Tube Town. His crew of nearly one hundred people from the many different countries of the ISP are not traditional astronauts, but rather, engineers, geologists, scientists, physicists, and technicians. 

He thought his job was to manage the crew and make sure the mission of sending humans to Mars was accomplished. He soon discovers that he is in space race version 2 with the CNSA to be the first to land humans on Mars. After a close call, he vows he will never be unprepared for human danger again. He devises a plan to beat the CNSA to Mars but he has a different goal in mind. While he is trying to do this, competitors arrive and conflict ensues. There is very little law on the high frontier and no one else to enforce it. Space is… not easy, but it turns out that the best way to get to Mars is through the Moon. 

Nearly all of the technology described in the book exists today in some form. No FTL, no transporter beams. Technology that has been discovered, exists in the lab, or as a prototype, has been extrapolated into the future.