From the author of the international bestseller The Apollo Murders: an edge-of-the seat Cold War thriller, set against the backdrop of the real 1970s "Space race" between the US, USSR, and China . . . 1975. A new Apollo mission launches into orbit, on course to dock with a Russian Soyuz craft: three NASA astronauts and three cosmonauts, joining to celebrate a new dawn of Soviet-American cooperation. But a third power is rising, in the race to dominate Space. As NASA Flight Controller Kaz Zemeckis listens in from Earth, three of the six astronauts are killed in a depressurization accident. And from a remote location in east Asia, a capsule secretly launches with China's very first astronaut aboard, purpose unknown . . . Full of Cold War intrigue and real historical characters, Final Orbit accelerates to a thrilling conclusion - and brings to life the loneliness, majesty and pure rush of Space flight, with all of the hard-won experience of a writer who is himself one of the most decorated astronauts alive.