Publisher’s Note
Hard science fiction works, whether they keep you on or around Earth or take you to the farthest reaches of the galaxy, are those that adhere more closely to science fact than not. Much dispute and emotional argument can ensue among fans in attempting to nail down any definition, but the term hard should in no way imply that a work takes itself overly seriously. Kite, with its orbitweary workman co-protagonist and its strong women co-protagonists is one of those stories that builds in the humor with the possibilities, that a time will come when humans will utilize Earth orbit in a mundane, everyday fashion, and that going to space in ships will not be as costly and risky as it is now. The inevitability of this is as sure as the inevitability that wherever people go they tend to make a mess, and someone will still have to be out there doing the rough jobs, and the cleaning up.

Author’s Note
Kite is a story that had been latent for a few years before emerging. The amount of debris in orbit has been building up since the days of the Mercury program, and it seems like every shuttle mission these days generates a news story about a debris encounter. Now that the shuttle program is coming to its long-overdue end, if we’re every going to inhabit the space around Earth, and use it as the platform for leaping out, as Carl Sagan put it, into the nearby neighborhood, the next generation of technology would need to do something about all the junk. A ship like Kite is just one projection of how it might be handled. – Bill S.