Pioneer

The time is 2183. Fifty-six-year-old Saunders Maxwell is a stubborn old space-farer who has spent his entire life in space. He has captained the Moon-Mars shuttle and led exploration missions beyond Mars. When he came to Mars in his forties he helped discover the water source that made the first American Mars colony possible.

Later he turned to asteroid mining, captaining a small ship and crew of about a half dozen on repeated trips to the asteroid belt, bringing back minerals or even small ...