Space Race

<p>Vastrap. Our very own nuclear testing site, so far into the desert that the Russians and the Americans don’t even have a clue about it. You don’t mess with an Afrikaner, not if you don’t want to get a proper klap.<br><br>An unauthorised nuclear blast beyond belief at Vastrap Airbase outside Upington not only winds up the Americans, but also launches Africa’s first spacecraft. Propelled by an engine harnessing the power of a nuclear bomb never disarmed in the eighties, the rocket leaves Earth without its pilot or crew.<br><br>But how did this spaceship, designed by the previous government to extend the Afrikaner’s history as a nation of pioneers, survive? And more pressingly, who’s working its joystick?<br><br>Small-time journalist Greg Hall sets out to uncover the details of the ship that has captured the world’s imagination. In the wreckage of the blast, he discovers a man badly burnt and almost dead. A man who has an alarming story to tell and a frightening plan of his own.<br><br>Funny and thrilling, The Space Race twinkles with its author’s humour and trademark irony.</p>