Raymond F. Jones 54 min read

In its three years aloft, the first space station Wheel drew more amateur telescopes than any object in the sky, and two of them filmed the exact moment a docking ship destroyed it.

Raymond F. Jones's 1956 story builds a sharp first-contact and social-SF tale around a catastrophic accident and its aftermath. Thoughtful, well-constructed golden-age SF. Read it for a story that investigates a disaster in orbit and finds something far larger behind the 'human error.'

In its time

Published in 1956, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

54 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Paul Orban