The terror

The wars of nerves, the cold wars, of the early Twentieth Century pale into insignificance beside the fear that besets humanity when Jan Carvel returns from space!
From Quintus Bland's History of Mankind, Chapter XXIV The Terror.
These are the halcyon years. The awful goad of the Terror is gone and men can look into the sky without fear. The new colonies thrive among the low red hills of Mars, in the icy moraines of Io, Europa, and Titan. Starships are poised on the outer moons; perhaps soon Earth will wear a diadem of stars.
Yet some of the bitterness of the fear-ridden years is with us still. Forgiveness does not come easily to those who have suffered the humiliation of the Terror; there are the blighted lives to remember, and the unfortunates who lived and died under the threat of annihilation from the sky. Jan Carvel's memory is accursed—for it was Carvel who brought the Terror.
Of the man himself, little is known. He lived—and died—in the first decade of the Conquest of Space, or in the last decade of the Nationalist Era, since they coincide. A few short years had passed since the first successful Moon flights and the establishment of the Space Stations, and the tensions that had been mounting among the nations of Earth were nearing the breaking point.
Lunaris was 'Moon Base' then, and the launching racks were pointed back toward Earth and not toward the planets. Intense activity had turned the Moon into an atomic arsenal—a focal point of all the destructive arts men had learned during and since the Second World War.
The Old Countries, mainly the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of America, stood with weapons poised; the seemingly eternal Cold War steadily growing hotter. Moon Base was American, and the Space Stations were Russian; a parity of weapons had been reached and jingoists cried for war.
History does not record the exact date of Jan Carvel's departure from the Earth-Moon System. It is known that he was an American, a qualified Moon pilot, and a fanatic on the subject of planetary exploration. It is also known that he boarded an experimental long range rocket-bomber without authorization and vanished from the arsenal in Tycho. Some have suggested that he did not steal the craft and that he was actually ordered on his epoch-making flight, presumably in search of militarily useful information. This is unlikely. Having reached the Moon and turned it into fortress, the United States lost interest in space travel. Carvel chafed under the restraints placed upon him and the Bureau of Security; it is therefore more than just probable that he took it upon himself to press the cause of exploration without authority or sanction.