DOWN TO EARTH By William H. Bailey In the mid-twenty-first century the world has been drastically depopulated by designer diseases. In the aftermath what is left of the United States is threatened by a massive invasion from the south. "The People's Liberation Army squeezed us so hard we got launched into space like a watermelon seed." In DOWN TO EARTH economical access to space is built out of desperation as the only way for the beleaguered Unites States to survive. The high frontier is finally opened, and not a moment too soon. Threatened by an overwhelming danger of invasion the small remnant of the United States builds a secure lunar base from which to construct the necessary infrastructure. They must use the resources of space if America and the rest of the world is to step back from the abyss. If they fail the world will be plunged into another Dark Age from which it might never recover. Everything is there for the taking if only they can survive long enough to gain the limitless riches of space. But first these patriots must beat back the ultimate threat of being wiped out by the PLA invasion, while the short sighted ambitions of internal political enemies make that all but impossible. Their success is far from assured, and the struggle to bring it off is a desperate and violent contest.