Cold equations

I first read [a variant of] Thomas Godwin's 1954 "Cold Equations" story in READ magazine in, I think, 1986. This was in English class, not "Science". The story's a classic, and as with all classics there has grown up an industry of Problematisation around it.

According to "legend", but I suspect it's true, editor John Campbell demanded of Godwin what our 1980s-era "Generation X" would call a Kobayashi Maru. Campbell wanted to get across to his Astounding readers that, in space, there can be no Tolkienoid "eucatastophe". If the oxygen runs out, you die. A Han Solo pleading "it's not my fault" to an uncaring universe just doesn't work.

I take it that the Kennedy Left technocrats always hated this story and that is why we got Apollo 13, that failure should never be an option. The modern Left don't like the Gender Politics of the original, so: Stowaway. I am unaware of a Right critique as such but I do find a Rightist in the comic form, RH Junior whose "Quentyn Quinn" made a right mockery of it. Pro-life libertarian anticorporatist, anyway.

Yes, the story as Godwin and Campbell posted it in 1954 is contrived. The author was writing... in 1954. Godwin and Campbell didn't know the details of the many ways space can kill you. The main issue stands: your shuttle's safeguards can fail, and when they do, the equations get very chilly indeed.

As for Stowaway: since 1954, we've had 65-70 years so this generation of authors has had that opportunity to harden the science some. There's a girl and there's the titular character, and they are not the same. The stowaway gets to live... we think. Whether the stowaway gets to live with himself is another question.