SF Stories I’m Reading: POUL ANDERSON “Third Stage.”

POUL ANDERSON “Third Stage.” First published in Amazing Stories, February 1962. Reprinted in Space Pioneers, edited by Hank Davis & Christopher Ruocchio (Baen, paperback, 2018). Included in several collection of Anderson’s work. When this gripping tale of misadventure in the space program in the US in 1962, the aforementioned space program had not been around for very long – a fact you should keep well in mind while reading it today. Two man are in a their small cabin in soace (the third stage) investigating the levels of radiation in the Van Allen belts surrounding the Earth. The information they gather will be a key to the future of the program – will it even be able to continue? — so the data they record is crucial; there is no doubt about that. But that part of the story is overtaken by even bigger problem. A jet to be used for the delicate maneuvering of their craft’s journey has frozen over. The solution is easy, sort of. All that one of the two men on board needs to to go out…