Atom Drive is a science fiction short story by American author Charles Louis Fontenay first published in 1956.

It was a race between the tortoise and the hare. But this hare was using some dirty tricks to make sure the ending would be different....

The newfangled atom drive (ion) rocket has to race the standardized chemical rocket to Mars and back--and beat it by twenty days--to win the interplanetary transport contract. The Mars Corporation does everything it can to sabotage the trip…

Atom Drive was first published in If Worlds of Science Fiction April 1956.

Charles Louis Fontenay (1917-2007) was an American journalist and science fiction writer. He wrote science fiction novels and short stories.