From The Trikon Deception, by Ben Bova and Bill Pogue, page 8:
Nutt shoved himself backwards to the computer terminal and slipped his stockinged feet into a pair of loops attached to the floor. Chairs were useless in microgravity; it took more work to force the body into a sitting position than to stay on one's feet. All the work surfaces were breast high because under the weightless conditions one's arms tended to float up almost to shoulder level.
--- The light in Bianco's eyes changed. His voice became stronger, more urgent. "But how can the human race go back to a simpler life without allowing billions to die? Can we privileged rich permit the world's poor to starve, to die of disease? No. The answer, my friends, is not less technology, but more. We need an entirely new type of technology, second-generation technology, new and clean and based on the scientific breakthroughs that you are striving to create. [...] From page 286, Bianco speaking again:
They think we are creating monsters that will be set loose upon the land. They agree that our environment is in a sorry state, but they see science and technology as the culprits. To a certain extent they may be correct. However, they do not understand that the world has crossed the Rubicon. The die is cast. The answer to our problems is not to turn away from science. The answer lies in more science, but an intelligent, refined science.
--- Fabio Bianco is a kind of Elon Musk or Richard Branson, sort of. From page 297 (a Japanese scientist is being swayed by Bianco's vision):
Perhaps Bianco has been right all along. Perhaps we should all be cooperating, without regard to nation or race. Perhaps the problem we face is so great that we must work together, fully and completely.
From pages 304-305:
Weiss studied the Indian's face for a moment. "Why don't the three arms of Trikon cooperate, Dr. Ramsanjawi?" he asked. "Personality clashes, racial clashes, silly notions of national pride. There is a good deal of competition in science, Mr. Weiss. Ask anyone who has received a Nobel Prize." He hesitated a beat, then, "But if you want my honest opinion, the root cause is money." "No one's mentioned that before," Weiss said. "Perhaps because it is not so obvious. Or perhaps because it is so obvious that it requires no mention." "Pretend I don't think it's so obvious," said Weiss. "How does money enter into it?" "There are forces that want to prevent Trikon from developing these microbes," said Ramsanjawi. "It is not because these forces wish the Earth to be suffocated in toxic wastes. They simply prefer that they be the ones who own the means of cleaning it up."
From page 332, Carla Sue Gamble trying to pressure Kurt Jaeckle into putting her down for the upcoming Mars mission:
"The standards for the Mars crew will be very high," he said trying to regain his dignity. "No, they won't, and you damn well know it," said Carla Sue. "They'll be just as cockamamy as they were for this project. Carla Sue Gamble in space? You thought that was funny at first, didn't you? But I'm here. And now that I've come this far I'm going all the way." "Your work will have to..." "Never mind my work! It's good enough, we both know that. [...]"
From page 339:
One of those valleys corkscrewing through the green was the Huallaga, the coca-producing capital of the world. He remembered the short days abnd endless nights of his own addiction. He would read of the DEA or the border patrol seizing tons upon tons of cocaine discovered in safe houses or barns. The law of supply and demand should have pushed the street price upward after such massive seizures. But the price never rose; sometimes it even declined. Were the drug kingpins dumnb? Did they fail to notice that oil companies routinely used the news of even a minor spill as a pretext for jacking up prices? No, O'Donnell finally had realized. There was so much shit around that a twenty-ton seizure was as annoying as a fly alighting on the back of a bull.
From pages 343-344:
As Weiss waited for the further instructions that never came, he entered every fact that he could muster into his laptop computer. Then he ran a program popular among investigative reporters. The computer played out a series of hypotheses in flowchart fashion.
--- I enjoyed this novel. Bova writes easily and keeps me interested. There are occasional clunkers when he talks about computers. But his insights into human behavior and motivations are valuable.