Marooned (Revised edition)

In 1969 a film based on the novel, also entitled Marooned, was released. The year coincided with the first moon landings and public interest in human space flight was high. [...] The film's plot remained the same as the 1964 book but the story was revised to make the space hardware and mission plans current. Caidin prepared a revised version of the novel in 1968 that was released in 1969 to coincide with the film. The revision concerns three US astronauts—Jim Pruett, "Buzz" Lloyd and Clayton "Stoney" Stone—stranded in an Apollo spacecraft named Ironman One. Pruett's back story was also rewritten to include a wife; in the 1964 version, Dick Pruitt was single. The astronauts have concluded their visit to the space station and separated from it; now, with the engine failing, they have insufficient fuel to return and wait there. Pruett's friend, now named Ted Dougherty, plans a rescue mission using an experimental X-RV lifting body spacecraft, an early study for the space shuttle orbiter. The X-RV will be mounted on a Titan III-C rocket reassigned for the purpose. In the revised novel the Soviet plans involve a Soyuz spacecraft. Caidin named the flight "Soyuz 11". (The real-life Soyuz 11 mission, in 1971, ended in tragedy when all three cosmonauts perished during re-entry while returning from Salyut 1, the first manned space station.) The film's screenplay was less current on this detail, referring to the Russian spacecraft as a Voskhod. In this version, Pruett dies in open space while trying to fix the Ironman; Lloyd and Stone are rescued. In a departure from the 1964 version, cosmonaut Andrei Yakovlev actually does physically assist Dougherty in an EVA rescuing the Ironman astronauts. The 1969 version also features Dougherty's launch in the Titan IIIC being through the eye of a hurricane. In the 1964 version, Dougherty's launch is in uneventful conditions. [[Wikipedia][1]] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marooned_%28novel%29 "Wikipedia"