7 sci-fi novels for people who want NASA, not Star Wars

Elon Musk may not talk as much these days about wanting to go to Mars, but plenty of authors are still trying to figure out how it would work. One of the best attempts is Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy, which kicked off with Red Mars in 1992, continued with Green Mars in 1993, and concluded with Blue Mars in 1996.

The premise is deceptively simple: the Earth is becoming unlivable due to things like climate change, and colonists are sent to Mars to try and turn the Red Planet into a place where human beings could thrive. This process takes hundreds of years, and there’s plenty of conflict along the way. Some factions want to aggressively terraform Mars while others want to preserve what makes the planet unique. Multinational corporations try to exert control over the planet’s resources, and a growing stream of climate refugees from Earth complicates matters.

Through it all, Robinson writes in great detail about the geology, physics, and sociology behind this transformation. This is a trilogy anybody interested in hard sci-fi should read.

Credit: Harper Voyager

Voyage traces the history of NASA’s first manned mission to Mars. It’s not an actual historical mission, of course, since we still have yet to visit the Red Planet. Voyage takes place in an alternate reality where John F. Kennedy survived the assassination attempt on his life in Dallas in 1963. In this reality, after NASA lands a man on the Moon, it turns its attention to Mars.

As befits a book about a NASA mission, the science in Voyage is impeccable. There’s a lot of talk about engineering, orbital mechanics, and rocketry. Baxter also depicts the sacrifices it would take to get to Mars, detailing how funding for other projects is cut so mankind can take this next big step.

Voyage was never adapted for the screen, but For All Mankind is a great sci-fi show on Apple TV that has a strikingly similar premise.

Credit: Tor Books

Blindsight is a great book about humanity’s first contact with an extraterrestrial species. That means it’s a little more out there than the first two entries on our list, but Peter Watts still grounds his story in real-world neurology, evolutionary biology, and computer science.

A crew of astronauts is sent to investigate the origin of a signal coming from just outside the solar system. They ultimately find an alien craft that identifies itself as ‘Rorschach,’ occupied by nine-legged creatures called ‘Scramblers.’

The Scramblers have more brainpower than humans do, but do not seem to possess self-awareness or consciousness. Watts explores the idea that human consciousness may be a bug in the evolutionary framework, rather than an advantage. It all comes together in a thrillingly unique book that’s part sci-fi, part philosophy, and part horror.

Credit: Orbit

Kim Stanley Robinson already has an entry on this list, but he writes some of the best sci-fi books around, so here he is again.

The Ministry for the Future is about the titular, fictional group, created under the 2016 Paris Agreement, that advocates on behalf of future generations. The Ministry determines that the greatest threat facing these generations is climate change, and sets about trying to reorder the world to fix it.

The book avoids suggesting that any one thing can fix this problem and explores a variety of solutions, all of them based in real-life science. These include carbon quantitative easing, advanced geoengineering projects, sail-driven container ships for cargo, and more.

Large parts of the book are devoted to non-fiction history, although there is still a plot. The Ministry for the Future belongs to a growing number of books in the climate fiction genre, and it’s one of the best.

Credit: Simon & Schuster

Written by astronomer Carl Sagan, Contact is about what happens when Earth detects an extraterrestrial signal from Vega, a distant star. It appears to include instructions for building something. Could it be a spaceship that will transport whoever uses it to an alien civilization?

Sagan keeps things scientifically grounded, with accurate discussions of radio astronomy and the mechanics of decoding the alien message. He includes real-life organizations like the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), and puts a lot of emphasis on the intersection between science, government, and religion.

Contact was adapted as a 1997 movie that focuses more on the relationship between science and religious faith. But versions of the story are worth experiencing.

Credit: Orbit

The Expanse series spans nine novels, starting with Leviathan Wakes in 2011 and ending with Leviathan Falls in 2021. It’s a series that combines the expansiveness of a space opera with the scientific detail of a hard sci-fi book.

The Expanse is set in the 24th century, when mankind has settled both Mars and the asteroid belt. Earth has become overpopulated, and tensions between the three groups are high. We get to know characters from every faction, although we mostly follow a group of do-gooders aboard a ship called the Rocinante who navigate this political minefield.

The Expanse was also turned into a TV show that’s uncommonly dedicated to scientific accuracy, although it only adapts the first six books. To get the full story, you’ll have to pick up the novels.

Credit: Ballantine Books

The Martian is about an astronaut who is left behind on a mission to Mars, and at a point in time when the planet has very much not yet been terraformed. He uses his skills as a botanist and engineer to survive until a rescue mission can be mounted.

Matt Damon played the lead role in a 2015 movie adaptation of The Martian, which won praise for its attention to detail when it came to scientific accuracy as well the depiction of politics within NASA. Andy Weir went on to write Project Hail Mary, which has also been turned into a fantastic sci-fi film. That one features an alien, so it’s a bit less realistic than The Martian. Another Weir book, Artemis, is currently being turned into a movie.