G. C. Edmondson 15 min read

With the Mars shot likely to fail like all the others, the three men who'll ride the rocket insist on one good meal first.

G. C. Edmondson's 1958 story sits at a table with a tired old general and the three young men about to gamble their lives on a mission Congress may never fund again if it fails. A wry, human piece of space-race SF about long odds, appetite, and grace under pressure. Read it for warm, understated golden-age SF that finds its heart in a shared meal before the danger.

In its time

Published in 1958, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

15 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).

Illustrated by

Richard Kluga