Synopsis
A group of explorers land on a distant planet, but an accident strands them. Repairs are hindered by the fact that everything on this world has a high amount of diamond crystals, even the dust blowing in the air.
History
First publication: Astounding, December 1953
Review
This gets a Top Tale. The stories most unique to science fiction are those that deal with the processes of scientific discovery. These stories are all about the science, even if only imaginary science. They are all about people facing the realities of the environment around them and seeing new possibilities in that environment that lead them to discovery. These are basically Robinson Crusoe stories. People are pitted against nature to survive and they do by using their intelligence. That’s what you have here, in its purest form. A group of space explorers trapped in what seems like a hopeless situation. It is hopeless as long as they continue to think in terms of their familiar technologies. But they all are advanced scientist, mathematicians and engineers and by pooling their knowledge and thinking in different terms, they solve their problems. I don’t think the science in this story is entirely accurate, even for 1953, but that isn’t really the point of the story. It’s the process that we are talking about here.
Videos
We have the story in these editions:
The Cold Equations & Other Stories, trade paperback, Baen, 2003-04-00
Astounding Science Fiction, December 1953, edited by John W. Campbell, Jr., magazine, Street & Smith, 1953-12-00
