The moon goddess and the son

by Donald Kingsbury

Diana's ambition to get a job on the moon started the same day she learned from a child's book of mythology that her namesake was the moon goddess. The time is the late 1980s. The Russians have secretly lofted a full-scale space station that dwarfs the one the U.S. hopes to build in the '90s. The American response - as it was in the late 1950s - is a crash program to overtake and surpass the Soviet effort, by 2010, their efforts have succeeded. A burgeoning space industry has resulted in an economic boom unprecedented in U.S. history - and man will never again be confined to Earth.