Meet the Rocket City Rednecks. They're five "backwoods" guys from the rocket city: Huntsville, Alabama, home to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and the birthplace of the U.S. space program. Sure, they love to shoot stuff and drink beer, and one of 'em lives in a trailer, but with a family tree full of NASA rocket scientists (not to mention their own PhDs and advanced degrees), they aim a little higher—like using homemade moonshine to fuel a rocket!

Now, in typical laidback style, Dr. Travis S. Taylor, leader of the crew, delivers the goods on how America can return to space exploration and manned space flight. What's needed is a good old "try anything" attitude, a bit of gumption, and the spectacularly entertaining backyard science that's the Rocket City Redneck specialty.

What if there really are aliens and they do attack? Read what two scientists reveal in this "how-to" survival manual for the space age. Some events (such as a deliberate asteroid strike) produce such a massive setback to life, the Earth and humanity that we must understand and prepare for them, even if the chances are low that they'll come about. But where to begin? Drs. Travis S. Taylor and Bob Boan are experienced scientists, physicists with expertise in both defense and military signal intelligence and experience working with the Department of Defense and NASA.

These two intellectual heavyweights take us on an amazing journey through what we do—and do not—know about how to defend ourselves from space. Sure, that day may never come in our lifetimes—but everyone should have a copy of this lying around just in case. . . .

THE SECOND TIME AROUND—IS HARDER . . .

Decades after the last footprints were left on the Moon, the U.S. was preparing to return to the Lunar surface in a new class of rockets, when the mission suddenly became much more urgent. It would have to be a rescue mission.

Unbeknownst to the rest of the world China had sent its own Lunar expedition. A manned expedition. Until a distress call was received, no human outside of China even knew that the mission was manned—or that their ship had crash-landed and couldn’t take off again.

Time was running out, and if the four Chinese astronauts were to be rescued, the American lunar mission would have to launch immediately, with only a skeleton crew. Once the heroic U.S. astronauts were underway the army of engineers and scientists back home had the daunting task of deciding what equipment could be left on the Moon to permit the Lunar lander vehicle vehicle to lift safely from the Moon with the two U.S. astronauts and the four stranded Chinese taikonauts! Could the U.S. mount such a mission successfully—and would thousands of years of instilled honor “allow” the Chinese astronauts to accept a rescue?

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Travis S. Taylor—“Doc” Taylor to his friends—has earned his soubriquet the hard way: He has a doctorate in optical science and engineering, a master's degree in physics, a master's degree in aerospace engineering, a master's degree in astronomy, and a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. Dr. Taylor has worked on various programs for the Department of Defense and NASA for the past sixteen years. He's currently working on several advanced propulsion concepts, very large space telescopes, space-based beamed energy systems, and next generation space launch concepts. He has appeared in several episodes of the History Channel’s Universe series. He lives in Auburn, AL with his wife Karen and their daughter.

Les Johnson is a NASA physicist, manager, author, husband and father. By day, he serves as the Deputy Manager for the Advanced Concepts Office at the NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, one of the coolest jobs in the universe. In the early 2000s, he was NASA’s Manager for Interstellar Propulsion Research and later managed the In-Space Propulsion Technology Project. He was technical consultant for the movie Lost in Space and has appeared on the Discovery Channel series, “Physics of the Impossible” in the “How to Build a Starship” episode. He has also appeared in three episodes of the Science Channel series, Exodus Earth. In his spare time he writes popular science books and articles, including Solar Sails: A Novel approach to Interplanetary Travel, Living Off the Land in Space: Green Roads to the Cosmos and Paradise Regained: The Regreening of Earth.

Listen to the authors discuss the book here on the Baen Free Radio Hour.

A Russian ICBM site is attacked just north of the Ukraine border—now nuclear warheads are missing! A Special Operations and Intelligence Community Task Force is rapidly put together to respond, but where it should deploy is unclear. A fire ravages a cosmonaut training facility in which five spacesuits disappear. And the Task Force finds a cache of detailed schematics of highly complex rocketry systems. The Task Force reaches out to Dr. Amy Sue Harrington of the Missiles and Space Intelligence Center in Huntsville, Alabama. To Dr. Harrington, it all adds up to the unthinkable: someone—someone extremely well funded—is taking aim at the International Space Station.

But Colonel Vladimir Lytokov and his team of mercenaries aren’t planning to bring the ISS crashing to Earth. They’re taking the fight to orbit, boarding the station and hijacking it. As the ISS traces its path across the heavens, Lytokov rains down destruction from above, effectively holding the entire globe hostage.

AN EPIC FIGHT FOR INDEPENDENCE ON OUR MOON

Something has been uncovered on the Moon that might have great scientific and economic importance. The Lunar colony is a mining colony with only internal security capabilities. Nobody had even considered that there might someday arise a need to defend the colony from the Earth! But that day has come.

The Lunar colonists made this great discovery and perceive it as their own. Finders keepers and possession being nine tenths of the law is how things are seen on the Moon. But the governments of the Earth don’t quite see eye-to-eye with the Lunarian’s philosophy. As far as the Earth is concerned, they paid for everything on the Moon, so it belongs to them.

There is only one solution: Battle Luna!

The Galaxy at Risk!

Humans have come a long ways since the looking glass gates first appeared and an alien menace turned a motley crew of scientists, sailors and force recon Marines into battle-hardened space adventurers. Now with other species running scared, it’s up to humans to take the lead and mold a weapon capable of checking the Dreen—a galactic cancer that has so far proved unstoppable. Their arsenal A hodge-podge of powerful technologies begged, borrowed and/or looted from across the galaxy and cobbled together on what has to be the strangest ship ever to ply the starways: the good ship Vorpal Blade II!

Great Ideas! Cool Space Ships! Evil Alien Butt Blasted to Smithereens!

"If Tom Clancy were writing SF, it would read much like John Ringo."
—Philadelphia Weekly Press.

“[T]his thoroughly enjoyable ride should appeal to techno-thriller fans as well as to military SF buffs."
—Publishers Weekly on John Ringo and Travis S. Taylor’s Into the Looking Glass.

Time is running out for the inhabitants of Proxima Centauri. Unsettling discoveries there and at Luyten’s star now threaten both Proxima and Earth, in a new hard science fiction thriller from Travis S. Taylor and Les Johnson.

First contact with the seemingly impossible human civilization at Proxima Centauri is not going well. The Earth ships sent to render aid have not been able to reverse the contagion ravaging their population and, worse, many Proximans are now wondering if the humans from Earth are there for other, not so charitable, reasons. Can the extinction-level disaster faced at Proxima be reversed by the combined ingenuity of scientists from both worlds working together?

Unsettling discoveries in the Proxima Centauri planetary system beg the questions: What if the evil gods depicted in Proxima’s ancient mythologies were real and far more powerful than even the humans from Earth with their late 21st century technologies? Worse, what if their ancient oppressors never truly left?

In February of 2011 we started posting free nonfiction we at Baen thought might be of interest to our readers. The first article was "The Size of it All" by Les Johnson, a Baen author and space scientist. As new nonfiction is made available, it will be posted on the main page, then added to this book (to save the Baen Barflies the trouble of doing it themselves). This is our compilation of nonfiction for 2017.

As is usual with such copyrighted material from Baen, the contents may be copied and shared but NOT sold. All commercial rights are reserved to Baen Books.

In January of 2011 we started posting free short stories we thought might be of interest to Baen readers. The first stories were "Space Hero" by Patrick Lundrigan, the winner of the 2010 Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Contest, and "Tanya, Princess of Elves," by Larry Correia, author of Monster Hunter International and set in that universe. As new stories are made available, they will be posted on the main page, then added to this book (to save the Baen Barflies the trouble of doing it themselves).

As is usual with such copyrighted material from Baen, the contents may be copied and shared but NOT sold. All commercial rights are reserved to Baen Books.

In January of 2011 we started posting free short stories we thought might be of interest to Baen readers. The first stories were "Space Hero" by Patrick Lundrigan, the winner of the 2010 Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Contest, and "Tanya, Princess of Elves," by Larry Correia, author of Monster Hunter International and set in that universe. As new stories are made available, they will be posted on the main page, then added to this book (to save the Baen Barflies the trouble of doing it themselves). This is our compilation of short stories for 2017.

As is usual with such copyrighted material from Baen, the contents may be copied and shared but NOT sold. All commercial rights are reserved to Baen Books.

In January of 2011 we started posting free short stories we thought might be of interest to Baen readers. The first stories were "Space Hero" by Patrick Lundrigan, the winner of the 2010 Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Contest, and "Tanya, Princess of Elves," by Larry Correia, author of Monster Hunter International and set in that universe. As new stories are made available, they will be posted on the main page, then added to this book (to save the Baen Barflies the trouble of doing it themselves). This is our compilation of short stories for 2018.

As is usual with such copyrighted material from Baen, the contents may be copied and shared but NOT sold. All commercial rights are reserved to Baen Books.

Startling Innovations. 
Cool Space Ships. 
Evil Alien Butt Blasted to Smithereens!

Outpost Attack! 

Gateway HD 36951 lies in ruins.  All survivors slaughtered.  A single, truncated message sent back to Earth.  Something very bad indeed is afoot, and the A.S.S. Vorpal Blade (read: nuclear submarine converted to warp-drive space ship) is sent to investigate.  But the ferocious, voracious enemy Dreen wait for no man (or other carbon-based lifeform), and the Blade and her crew are soon the only hope for an alien species pushed to the brink of extinction.  Turn back and abandon a new ally or face a heavily-armed Dreen destroyer head on  

For the Blade's rough-and-ready crew, it's no contest.  And now, with an infusion of technical know-how from humanity's new ally, chaos itself has become a weapon!

New York Times and USA Today multiple best-seller John Ringo
joins with NASA and DOD consultant
Travis S. Taylor — author of Warp Speed and The Quantum Connectio

"If Tom Clancy were writing SF, it would read much like John Ringo."
— Philadelphia Weekly Press on New York Times multiple best-seller John Ringo.

"[T]his thoroughly enjoyable ride should appeal to techno-thriller fans as well as to military SF buffs."
— Publishers Weekly on John Ringo and Travis S. Taylor's Into the Looking Glass.

STAY ALIVE ON THE FAR SIDE OF THE MOON

What happens when you get the one thing you wanted most in life? Lonely 16-year-old farm girl Barbara Winton has been following one reality show for years. Then in an instant she goes from fangirl to participant when the call comes from Dr. Keegan Bright: She’s been selected out of a horde of applicants to join him on the Moon.

She’ll be one of his Bright Sparks, six students with expertise in STEM and plenty of their own ingenuity chosen to work with Dr. Bright and given big responsibilities to undertake new projects important to the growth of the colony. Her first task? Build a radar telescope using an entire crater on the far side of the Moon.

But Barbara soon learns that life on a burgeoning frontier outpost like the Moon is a far cry from safe, civilized Earth. The loner from farm country must find a way to weld a functional team out of fiercely independent thinkers. Not only are they a bit trickier to work with than farm robots, not only is the working environment incredibly dangerous—she also has to perform this miracle in front of millions of fans. . . .

Lexile Score: 770

Barbara Winton and the rest of the Bright Sparks, Dr. Keegan Bright’s team of young scientists, find themselves facing a challenge that will test all of their scientific skills and personal courage. They are competing in the first ever race to completely circle the Moon. The Sparks, and twenty-five other teams, have to count on one another as they face thousands of kilometers of unknown dangers, where even a simple accident can have fatal consequences. They form close friendships with racers from all over Earth, but also have to deal with former Spark, Pam, a mysterious and threatening figure whose departure from the Sparks program is shrouded in mystery.

While the Sparks compete in the race, Dr. Bright himself is part of a groundbreaking project to seek out rare minerals underneath a crater. On the far side of the Moon, in the airless, frozen depths beneath the lunar surface, disaster strikes. On the thinly settled Moon only the Bright Sparks may be close enough to help him. The young scientist find themselves not only racing for victory, but to save their beloved mentor.

by Travis S. Taylor

Realistic thriller crackling with action and danger as an asteroid threatens the Earth, and dedicated astronauts and scientists try to save the planet.

LOOMING DESTRUCTION FROM SPACE!

It's the beginning of a new golden age of space exploration. Finally, humanity is taking the commercialization of space to the next level—mining asteroids. The new gold rush of the commercial space era has begun.

Another commercial venture, an attempt to put a hotel on the Moon, is seeking the space tourism gold of the ultra wealthy. And it seems as if the dream of finally sending people to Mars is finally going to happen using a ship propelled by a powerful nuclear rocket.

But space travel isn’t cut and dry, and there is nothing routine about it. In order to mine an asteroid the goal is to bring it closer to Earth, but orbital mechanics are tricky and close to Earth  proves to be far too close for comfort—with looming destruction from space about to become a grim reality.  Now astronauts, scientists, engineers, and people in all the burgeoning space businesses must team together to stop the asteroid before it is too late for humanity and the planet it calls home.

The year is 2072. At the lunar farside radio observatory, an old-school radio broadcast is detected, similar to those broadcast on Earth in the 1940s, but in an unknown language, coming from an impossible source, and originating at an equally impossible location—Proxima Centauri. While the nations of Earth debate making first contact, they learn that the Proximans are facing an extinction-level disaster, forcing a decision: will Earth send a ship on a multiyear trip to provide aid?

Interstellar travel is not easy, and by traveling at the speeds required to arrive before disaster strikes at Proxima, humans will learn firsthand the effects of Einstein’s Special Relativity and be forced to ponder the ultimate of questions: “Are we alone in the universe?” and “What does it mean to be human?”

The Breathtaking Sequel to Warp Speed—Science Fiction Written by a Real Scientist Who is Also a Gifted Writer.

Steven Montana, computer whiz and hacker extraordinaire, was attending college in Ohio when his world fell apart. A swarm of huge meteors fell all over the world, on Europe, on the United States, and in particular on Steven's home town in California. In an instant, his family and all his friends were gone.

Suffering fits of deep depression, he dropped out of college and ended up working as a repairman in a video games store, where he did a brilliant job of repairing a 30-year-old video game. That caught the attention of the game's owner, who happened to be in a position to get Steven a government job, cracking computer codes, and reverse engineering unusual hardware.
When he was given a tiny piece of hardware to examine as a "test," he worked out its functions so well that he and his boss were called to Washington for a Top Secret meeting. They asked him countless questions, yet declined to answer his; but he would soon learn all the answers.

The "meteor" onslaught that had orphaned him had actually been a brief and still secret war between the U.S and its enemies (as told in Warp Speed) using a new warp drive technology that was more secret than top secret. Another secret was that U.S. had been sending faster-than-light ships to other star systems. Most secret of all was that unfriendly aliens were observing the Earth, and while U.S. spaceships were not quite in a war with the unknown aliens, they were shooting at the intruders.

Whether any of these answers would do Steven any good was an open question because he learned them only after he was abducted by those very same aliens and was held prisoner on one of their ships orbiting Saturn. At first, he was one of three human prisoners, but he had just seen the aliens completely dissect one of the three, and it looked like either Steven, or the Russian girl who was his fellow prisoner, were scheduled to be the next alien lab experiment. . . .

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Travis S. Taylor—"Doc" Taylor to his friends—has earned his soubriquet the hard way: He has a Doctorate in Optical Science and Engineering, a Master's degree in Physics, a Master's degree in Aerospace Engineering, all from the University of Alabama in Huntsville; a Master's degree in Astronomy from the University of Western Sydney, and a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Auburn University. Dr. Taylor has worked on various programs for the Department of Defense and NASA for the past sixteen years. He's currently working on several advanced propulsion concepts, very large space telescopes, space-based beamed energy systems, and next generation space launch concepts. In his copious spare time, Doc Travis is also a black belt martial artist, a private pilot, a SCUBA diver, has raced mountain bikes, competed in triathlons, and has been the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of several hard rock bands. He currently lives with his wife Karen, his daughter Kalista, two dogs Stevie and Wesker, and his cat Kuro, in north Alabama.

Praise for Warp Speed, the prequel:

"Reads like Doc Smith writing Robert Ludlum; beautiful, vivacious female astronauts, sterling-hearted redneck scientists and evil mercenaries bent upon galaxy-wide conquest. You won't want to put it down. FLUBELLS AWAY!" —John Ringo

"You thought they didn't write 'em like this anymore Doc Travis does!" —Jim Baen

We create our own reality and science says it's true!
The Laws of Attraction do exist and are explained in
Layman's Terms by a NASA Scientist.

Somebody was testing a planet—killing weapon on Mars—and the next target was Earth

Mars is the staging ground. Earth is the target. A storm of invasion gathers as the Red Planet pales and Earth scientists � amateurs and professionals alike � race to discover what it portends. Worse news: the horde of self-replicating probes suspected as the cause � implacable and all-consuming in its own right � may be only the tip of a full-scale assault.

Ideas — the only useful weapon when facing an adversary an order of magnitude more advanced than you are. But against such an enemy, thought without action is as futile as war-making without a plan. Humanity's hope The "straddlers": intelligent soldiers who know their science — and fighting scientists who have no scruples about using their smarts to kick some alien butt. Yet even with the right people finally on the job, the hour is late.

For Mars glows red again. And the swarm is nearly upon us!

Multiple New York Times and USA Today best-seller John Ringo rocks our world as hard as he did with his ground-breaking "Posleen War" series, teaming with NASA and DOD scientist Travis S. Taylor, a specialist in advanced propulsion and space telescopes — and popular author of Warp Speed and The Quantum Connection — to usher in a new saga of invasion, resistance and heroism!

"If Tom Clancy were writing SF, it would read much like John Ringo."
—Philadelphia Weekly Press on New York Times best-seller John Ringo.

"[S]timulating and satisfying speculation."
—Publishers Weekly on Travis S. Taylor's The Quantum Connection.