Nelson S. Bond 22 min read

What this country really needs isn't a five-cent cigar but a good cigar-shaped spaceship, and there's a fortune waiting out in space for the man who can go claim it.

Nelson S. Bond's 1957 story spins genial comic hard-SF from a wild scheme to reach the stars. Light, funny golden-age SF. Read it for a breezy tale of a would-be spaceman, a skeptical sweetheart, and an idea that's lighter than you think.

In its time

Published in 1957, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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