220 Days on a Starship

This is the first book of the trilogy by Georgy Martynov “Star Plowmen.” The Soviet space ship “USSR-KS2,” with a crew of four starplowmen led by the ship’s designer Sergey Kamov, heads on an expedition to Mars. Along the way, they inspect Venus without landing on it. Almost at the same time, another spacecraft takes off for Mars—its creator, American Charles Hepgood, is determined to get there first at any cost.

As a result of this rivalry and tragic coincidence, Hepgood dies. Soviet cosmonauts save his companion Ralph Bayson. And he decides to “thank” them for this— in his own way, “in an American way”… But his plan fails, and after surveying the planet, the crew of the Soviet starship is set to return. However, the expedition leader Kamov doesn’t come back from his last trip to Mars. The “USSR-KS2” is forced to launch back to Earth without its commander…