POUL ANDERSON “Third Stage.” First published in Amazing Stories, February 1962. Reprinted in Space Pioneers, edited by Hank Davis & Christopher Ruocchio (Baen, paperback, 2018). Included in several collection of Anderson’s work.

   When this gripping tale of misadventure in the space program in the US in 1962, the aforementioned space program had not been around for very long – a fact you should keep well in mind while reading it today. Two man are in a their small cabin in soace (the third stage) investigating the levels of radiation in the Van Allen belts surrounding the Earth. The information they gather will be a key to the future of the program – will it even be able to continue? — so the data they record is crucial; there is no doubt about that.

   But that part of the story is overtaken by even bigger problem. A jet to be used for the delicate maneuvering of their craft’s journey has frozen over. The solution is easy, sort of. All that one of the two men on board needs to to go out of their vehicle and clear the jet by hand. Th downside of this solution is that the man who goes outside will die from the exposure to the radiation he will not be protected from.

   Of of the two men, who be the one to go out? To be a hero, but doomed to a slow ugly death. Both men are still young, with families watching and waiting, as is the entire country. The decision us sent higher and higher upstairs until it reaches the president. This is not the end of the story, though. I will not say more, but if other means fail, I believe is available to read online.

   It’s worth searching for. Poul Anderson is not one of my favorite SF writers, but he nails it this time, including what might have been among the first stories in which the media gets in the way of the story they are telling. When I used the word “gripping” in the first line of this review, I meant it.