Orbital

Set in the near future, Orbital by Sarah Harvey is an account of one day in the life of four astronauts and two cosmonauts in a spacecraft, orbiting 250 miles above Earth. Each day the spacecraft completes 16 orbits of the earth - orbiting the planet once every 90 minutes. Each chapter covers one orbit. 

The book describes the daily lives of the occupants of the spacecraft - four men and two women; two Russians, one Japanese, one British, one Italian and one American - as they carry out their scientific experiments, exercise to keep fit, send regular reports back to base, eat, sleep and adjust to the different environment of living in space for a prolonged time. There is time to reflect on life and family back on earth and the damage being done to the environment. There is also concern about the quantity of space junk circling the earth. The first manned spacecraft for many years has just left Earth for the Moon which causes another avenue for reflection about the future of space travel.

Orbital to a large extent reads like a poem as it records the different views, thoughts and activities of the spacecraft occupants. It is a short novel, only 136 pages. Orbital by Sarah Harvey won the 2004 Booker prize for fiction.