An Explosion On the Way to Mars Halfway to the Red Planet , an explosion leaves the four-member crew of the Ares 10 with only enough oxygen for one. Valkerie Jansen, the ship’s doctor , is tough, beautiful, and has an uncanny knack for survival. Bob Kaganovski, the ship's mechanic , is paid to be paranoid -- and he's good at it. He’s worried that Valkerie is mentally unbalanced, possibly even dangerous. Which is just too bad , because Bob’s falling in love with her. Meanwhile , NASA is trying to figure out who should live and who should die, when there’s only enough oxygen for one. About the Book Oxygen is a Mars suspense novel that mixes science, religion, romance, and suspense. Oxygen won the 2002 Christy award for best futuristic novel in Christian fiction. Oxygen will take you on a wretched, miserable, dangerous vacation to Mars in a stinking, cramped, failing spaceship. Excerpt Bob Kaganovski had shampoo in his eyes when the decompression alarm went off. He grabbed the suction hose and ran it frantically over his face and eyes. Footsteps pounded outside the shower. “Decompression!” shouted Josh Bennett, mission commander of the Ares 10. “Get to the EVA suits now! We’ve got about fifteen minutes.” Bob popped open the Velcroed shower door and grabbed a towel. Fear knotted his gut. Only fifteen minutes! He stepped out of the shower and swiped a towel across the soles of his feet, drying them just enough so he wouldn’t kill himself on the stairs. He ran through a corridor to the steep circular stairway that led down to Level 1 of the Habitation Module. The decompression alarm beeped once every two seconds. The interval was keyed to cabin pressure. When it got down to vacuum, the beeps would merge into one steady drone. If he wasn’t in his suit by then, he wouldn’t hear it. For one thing, sound wouldn’t travel in a vacuum. For another, he’d be dead.