Moonraker

A Drax Industries Moonraker space shuttle is hijacked in mid-air, causing the incineration of the carrier Boeing 747. Bond is recalled from South Africa to investigate. En route in a small plane, Bond is attacked by the pilot and crew. He is pushed out of the plane by henchman Jaws, but survives by stealing a parachute from the pilot in mid-air. Bond reports to MI6 headquarters in London, and is briefed by M and Q about the hijacking. It is agreed that the investigation should begin at the Drax Industries shuttle complex in Southern California.

At Drax Industries, Bond is coldly greeted by the owner of the company Hugo Drax and henchman Chang. Bond also meets an astronaut, Dr. Holly Goodhead. Inadvertently aided by Drax's personal pilot, Corinne Dufour, Bond sneaks into Drax's study and finds blueprints for a glass vial made in Venice. The next morning, Dufour is fired by Drax and killed by two Dobermans.

Bond arrives at a glass museum in Venice; he again encounters Goodhead. He is chased through the canals by Drax's henchmen but his gondola transforms into a hovercraft and he escapes. That night, Bond returns to the glass factory and learns the vials are to hold a nerve gas fatal only to humans; Chang ambushes Bond but is killed (after Bond has seen packaging suggesting that Drax is moving his operation to Rio de Janeiro). Bond sneaks into Goodhead's hotel room, where he notices a flame-throwing perfume bottle, poisoned darts and a radio transmitter issued by the Central Intelligence Agency. He concludes that Goodhead is a CIA agent spying on Drax. They promise to work together, but quickly dispense with the truce. Bond has saved one of the vials he found earlier, giving it to M for analysis - M permits him to go to Rio de Janeiro.

In Rio de Janeiro Bond learns that Chang has been replaced by Jaws. Bond encounters Goodhead and Jaws again at the top of the Sugar Loaf, the three fight atop a cable car. After Jaws' cable car crashes into the control centre, he is rescued by a short girl ("Dolly") and the two fall in love. Bond and Goodhead lying on the ground after the cable car event are captured by henchmen and sent off tied down in an ambulance. Bond however escapes.

Bond reports to M's headquarters in Brazil and learns that the toxin comes from a rare orchid indigenous to the Amazon jungle. While deadly to humans, it is harmless to all other life. Bond then travels up the Amazon River looking for Drax's research facility, and soon encounters Jaws and other henchmen again in a speedboat chase. Bond escapes via a hang glider from the speedboat just as it passes into the Iguacu Falls. Bond land in a forest and is intoxicatingly lured into an ancient Incan pyramid by a group of beautiful women. An attempt to kill him by him falling into the centre pool with a snake however is unsuccessful, as he kills the python. Captured by Jaws again, Bond is taken to Drax's adjacent control room, where he sees four Moonrakers lifting off. Drax confirms Bond's theory that he himself stole the Moonraker because another in the fleet had developed a fault during assembly. Bond is reunited with Goodhead in a blast pit underneath Drax's personal shuttle set for lift off. He and Goodhead escape and pose as pilots on the sixth shuttle. All shuttles then dock with Drax's space station, which is invisible from Earth.

Drax plans to destroy all human life by launching 50 globes containing the toxin into the earth's atmosphere. Before launching the globes, Drax also transported several dozen young men and women (many of which Bond had encountered in the Inca pyramid) of varying race which he regarded as genetically perfect to the space station. They would live there until Earth was safe again for human life; their descendents will be the seed for a "new master race." Bond persuades Jaws and Dolly to switch allegiance by getting Drax to admit that that anyone not measuring up to his physical standards would be exterminated (Dolly's glasses and Jaws' metal teeth being traits that exclude them both).
James Bond and Holly Goodhead in the space station.
James Bond and Holly Goodhead in the space station.

A radar-jammer hides the space station's orbital presence from observers on Earth; 007 and Goodhead disable it. The U.S. send a platoon of Marines in a military shuttle. On arrival, a laser battle ensues. During the battle, Bond shoots Drax with a cyanide-coated dart attached to his watch, pushes him to an airlock, and ejects him into outer space.

Before the battle, Drax launched three of the globes towards Earth. Victorious, the Americans leave when Bond says their mission is completed. The space station is heavily damaged and begins to fall apart. Jaws helps Bond and Goodhead escape in Drax's space shuttle. In celebration, Jaws opens a champagne bottle and he and Dolly toast (in his only spoken line: "Well, here's to us!"). They too escape the space station as their module breaks away before the station explodes. Goodhead and Bond track the three poison gas globes, and Bond uses Drax's shuttle lasers to destroy them. The two return to Earth after making love in space (prompting the memorable line from Q: "I think he's attempting re-entry Sir!").