THE SOLAR EXPRESS BY William H. Bailey 2017 A STORY IN TWO PARTS THE SOLAR EXPRESS describes the results of the opening of the high frontier of orbital space. In previous stories FREEFALL, EARTHPARK, and DOWN TO EARTH, Designer Disease Plagues have reduced world population by eighty percent, and the United States military desperately fights off the People's Liberation Army invading from the south. In order to win against overwhelming odds in spite of political resistance at every turn, they use unconventional and highly controversial methods to establish themselves in orbital space. The many advantages of the gravity well allow them to force the PLA to flee south, and restore the integrity of the U.S. border. In book one, HOW TO LOSE THE WEIGHT YOU NEEDED TO THROW AROUND, the pioneers of orbital space begin to explore the solar system, and use the resources they discover to improve conditions on the home planet. The short sighted politicians who tried to prevent them now attempt to hijack their successful efforts. They are forced to defend themselves from domestic political greed and foreign hostility to attempt to bring clean solar electricity and abundant natural resources from space to a world reduced to abject poverty. They must get past the gate keepers of conventional political thinking and commercial greed to do so. It proves to be a dangerous business. Funded by the economic interests threatened by the resources of space they are violently opposed at every turn.
About the Author: Author: William H. Bailey is an Army brat born 1940 at Fort Benning, Ga. to a West Point Company Commander under Patton, and an Army nurse Lt. 1946-48 he lived in the bombed out Frankfurt, Germany and 1951-55 in Tokyo. He attended twenty different schools before graduating from Highland High in Albuquerque where his father retired as Base CO Sandia/Manzano Bases. A volunteer with the 101st Airborne 1960-63 he returned to New Mexico, became a Certified Instructor, and Area Safety Officer for the US Parachute Association. As a barnstorming skydiver he accumulated four hours of freefall, 500+ jumps, and trained hundreds of first time jumpers without serious accident. He earned a BA from UNM in 1968, and moved to San Francisco where he sold computers, graphic office equipment, and software all over the country for such companies as Xerox, Itek, and MicroPro. Now retired he lives near Mountainair, NM.