The Last Astronaut by David Wellington
Fiction
What it’s about: In the 2050s, NASA has scrapped crewed flights after a disastrous Mars mission, leaving space exploration mostly in the hands of private company KSpace. But when a KSpace astrophysicist makes a startling discovery, he risks his job to tell NASA: a bizarre object in space is decelerating and heading directly for Earth. NASA and KSpace are now in direct competition to chart a course for the alien object and figure out what it wants, which means NASA must pull its last remaining astronaut out of retirement. The rest of the novel is an intensely cinematic and disturbing journey, as both crews enter the strange ship and find nightmarish creatures inside. Action-packed, character-driven, and featuring perhaps the grossest scene of alien body invasion since Alien itself, The Last Astronaut is an exciting addition to the first contact canon. My only quibble is with some of the pretend tech: a “neutrino gun,” according to Fermilab physicists, would be an unmanageable and absurd communication mechanism, even in the future.
Introducing: Heroic former NASA Mission Commander Sally Jansen, the last astronaut of the title, who’s called out to head the Orion 7 first contact mission. After leading a failed attempt to reach Mars on Orion 6 in 2034 (a misstep that cost the life of a crew member), Jansen is traumatized, ashamed, and out to prove that she can successfully keep her group safe.
Try this next: The criminally underrated and claustrophobic psychological horror film As Above, So Below or Ericka Swyler’s Light From Other Stars—an ambitious novel about NASA, astronauts, and time travel.