The Rescue of Athena One (Six Million Dollar Man, No. 5)

Steve Austin is hot and annoyed he is training another pilot to fly a mission to Skylab. The first female astronaut, no less. Watching the operations isn't a lot of fun. "Love these new short countdowns, the old ones were like waiting for a ticket to the opera." "You never saw an opera in your life," Goldman said. "Not true. You made me go to one in Vienna once, remember? Damn near killed me." He gets a hell of a surprise when taking a break and going for a walk in the nature reserve he stumbles across a family of aliens. After a telekinesis vs bionic super strength superpowered standoff, they get to talking. Kelly Woods' mission lifts off ok, but an explosion in space injures the other astronaut, and they have to fly a shuttle mission up to operate, with some alien help, and take the surviving remaining female alien back to her mother ship, no less. Dr. Wells gets to go along : "You're certainly more physically fit than most astronomers. I mean, you ain't as young or good looking as Carl Sagan, but you'll do!" It seems the visitors from Tau Ceti have been tuning in to the media. ".. would you like to know the results of the latest Test Matches?" "God help us," Austin said. "The first visitors from another planet and they turn out to be Anglophiles." Entertaining book, with some space geekery, and an actual detailed description of what they did when they bionicised Austin.