Gateway

Gateway is a science fiction novel by the American writer Frederik Pohl, published in 1977. It was serialized in Galaxy before it appeared in hardcover, and it won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus and John W. Campbell Memorial awards for best novel.

The Gateway asteroid was hollowed out by the Heechee, a species that disappeared and left its hardware behind. Nearly a thousand small starships are parked there, and the Gateway Corporation administers the rock on behalf of the United States, the Soviet Union, New People's Asia, the Venusian Confederation and Brazil. Humans have identified the controls that select a destination but understand almost nothing else about the ships.

That leaves the travellers to guess. A prospector picks a setting, loads the ship with equipment and as much food as will fit, and finds out afterwards where he has been and whether the return leg is possible, which is why the successful ones come back wealthy and a great many others do not come back at all. Pohl wrote four sequels, and the novel was adapted as a computer game in 1992.