Tranquility Alternative, The

After 50 years of extraordinary progress that includes manned spaceflight in 1944, a giant orbiting station called the Wheel, and a 1976 Mars expedition led by Neil Armstrong, the U.S. space program is dying out. NASA's final moon mission takes place in 1995, and the crew must dismantle a nuclear missile base, deemed unnecessary thanks to the cold war's thawing. Veteran astronaut Gene Parnell and crew are instead sent, along with computer hacker Paul Dooley, to turn the base over to the rising European space program and to launch the missiles into the sun. Shortly before liftoff, though, Dooley is replaced by an impostor, and at least three other crew members have a hidden agenda that includes retargeting the warheads toward Earth.