They Shall Have Stars

They Shall Have Stars by James Blish

In a not too distant future, the west has "won", but they have become more authoritarian like the communists, thus giving the communists what is akin to a real victory. The book centers on some researchers out in Jupiter. They have built a giant bridge to do research. Part of the public face is in anti-age research. They think they can find something that will stop aging. However, what they have really found is magnetic research. This allows traveling great distances at super fast speed with minimal power usage. The flying will enable people to travel across the galaxy and export the western culture via ships. The book was written in the 1950s and had a very different view of our future. Some areas like magnetic propulsion The magnetic propulsion and anti-aging research still seem to be just around the corner. Authoritarianism does seem to be coming back into vogue. Despite getting many details "wrong" about today, it did seem to get a lot right.