Ben Bovas ungvuxna Exiler Trilogi.
Computer engineer Lou Christopher's life falls apart when the World Government decrees that the project he is working on is too dangerous to continue. Thus, he and thousands of other scientists and their families are sentenced to permanent exile from Earth on a space station. But Lou and several others decide to escape--by converting the space station into a starship.
The world government has taken the difficult decision to exile the most important scientists of the Earth from the planet. Their work is considered too dangerous for humanity so it was decided to send them to a space station where they cann’t interfere with society.
Two erstwhile friends engage in a bitter double rivalry for the hand of Valerie, and for the Chairmanship of the spaceship cum cryogenics laboratory now nearing a possible landfall after a fifty year journey from Earth. The Chairman will be responsible for deciding the people's future (should they breed a generation of giant sulphur-breathing mutants capable of surviving on the inhospitable major planet of Alpha Centauri or continue their search for a more congenial home?), but when Valerie's father is attacked and the relevant data destroyed it becomes evident that one of the contenders is a genocidal lunatic. Even Valerie can't tell which, and if her failure of intuition is as infuriating as her indecisiveness (she loves both Dan and Larry, but Larry a bit more), you can sit back and enjoy the Alpha Centaurian scenery while waiting for the mystery to come to its predictable conclusion. An armchair voyage, comfortably craftsmanlike.
You might not recognize any of this crew from Flight of Exiles (1972) as it's some years and a whole test tube generation later, but their situation will be instantly recognizable to space travel initiates. A primitive priestess whose ceremonial robe is an old electric blanket. . . a set of commandments that is really the tape-recorded last words of Jerlet, before he went upstairs to a healthier, zero-gravity environment. . . superstitious kids who don't realize that their "world" is really a robot-controlled megarocket. One of them, Linc, does realize and learns to fix the machines in time for a final course 'correction and a happy landing on the earthlike planet Beryl. Despite some dismal gimmickry (salvation is effected at the last minute by a matter transfer machine, the ship has been supplied with a zillion year stock of o.j. and soyburgers) and thin personalities (females seem particularly weak-willed, even the wily priestess Magda), Linc's lonely voice of rationality and love of tinkering keep this humming smoothly. Programmed escape.