A short story by
Bruce Sterling and
William Gibson, set in the last days of the
Soviet space program. Colonel Korolev, the first man on
Mars, lives on the
space station Kosmograd, unable to return to
Earth after being
crippled in an
accident. Amidst the political intrigues, illicit
liasons and
illegal tapes of western TV enjoyed by the
cosmonauts, the news arrives that the station will be "retired". The Soviet
government has decided that a manned presence in space is costly and
ideologically unneccessary. Some members of the crew rebel and decide to
defect and land their Soyuzes in other countries, but Korolev must stay and face the fact that his government has altered his status from People's
Hero to
expendable fossil.
Written in the early 80's, RSWO projects the contemporary Soviet space effort into the very near future - now an alternate history! Of course, within a few years Russian communism was in its dying days, but the story's take on the dichotomy of exploring space versus exploiting space still applies to any government which contemplates labelling "the final frontier" as cost-ineffective. Originally appearing in "Omni" magazine, it was later published in an anthology of Gibson's short fiction, entitled "Burning Chrome".
(Addendum) Without giving away the ending, this story might also appeal to the individualists and open-source advocates out there in its other prediction about the future of space travel...