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Orbiter is a graphic novel by Warren Ellis and Colleen Doran, published in 2003 by DC Comics under their Vertigo imprint. It is a hard science fiction story set in the early 21st Century about a team of specialists employed to understand the mysterious reappearance of the space shuttle Venture. The shuttle crashed back to Earth after disappearing ten years earlier with its crew missing, save for the catatonic pilot, and alien technology on board.
Ellis and Doran are both space flight enthusiasts and dedicated Orbiter to the "lives, memories and legacies" of the astronauts who died in the 2003 Columbia disaster.
Plot
The story begins with the crash of the Venture into the area around Kennedy Space Center, which has been turned into slums as a result of the loss of the believed loss of the Venture ten years earlier. A team composed primarily of former NASA personnel is assembled to study the ship and its only crew member, John Cost. The space shuttle has been refitted with a strange kind of organic skin on the surface which appears to absorb radioactivity as well as maintaining the shuttle's structural integrity. After some time the team members begin to figure out how the ship is able to fly so far and fast. After working with the only man in the flight they find out what happened. A unknown alien race kidnapped the Venture along with all but one of its crew, who was sent on a "tour" of the universe in his newly refitted ship. The book ends with most of the characters flying the ship "to meet them".