TOM NOELS SET UP THE FIRST HOSPITAL IN ORBIT...AND IT COULD BE THE LAST! It would cost 150 lives, more or less, to get the GEO satellite on-line and transmitting solar power to an energy-starved Earth—that was the estimate of fatal industrial accidents in the mammoth space project. It was Dr. Tom Noels' job to cut that deadly figure drastically, by designing, staffing, and running a complete emergency ward .22,400 miles from the nearest hospital. Tom Noels had to re-invent almost every medical technique to allow for weightlessness and the other unknown effects of space, and he improvised brilliantly—but not always successfully. He treated patients who were injured in ways undreamed-of in medical history including a "bullet wound" from a micro-meteorite—lost some, saved some, and would save many more .if only he managed to stay alive himself!