T. D. Hamm 5 min read

In the whispering silence after the motors cut, three crewmen grin weakly at one another, behind them the launching station, ahead a faint red dot that is Mars, the goal of half a century.

T. D. Hamm's 1961 story opens on the awe of departure for the red planet, centered on an astrogator for whom the stars are everything. Evocative, atmospheric golden-age SF. Read it for a story steeped in the wonder of first reaching Mars, and the man who lived only to get there.

In its time

Published in 1961, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Dan Adkins