Found: Astronaut has to walk around the whole moon - short story
Original topic subject: Astronaut has to walk around the whole moon - short story
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1Dauphine27
I’m trying to locate a short story and maybe even the book it came out of.
I read this somewhere in the 90s (in the USA), but it didn’t strike me as a new publication. This was a collection of sci-fi short stories. I think it was geared toward adults, although the content wasn’t in any way inappropriate.
The story I remember was about one or more astronauts that went to visit the moon. Something went wrong and the one astronaut who was walking on the moon was stuck there. Another ship was going to be able to come to get him, but it was going to be a specific window of time (week/month/year?) before they could come back, and the astronaut wouldn’t be able to stay in the same place the whole time for some reason. To survive, he was going to have to walk around the whole moon and end up in the same place at the time the ship arrived to pick him up.
I do remember that he had some sort of nutrition bars he could eat to stay alive, and he went to the bathroom in his spacesuit, which was designed to take the waste, convert it to a pile of dust, and he could squat and expel it from the suit.
While he was walking, he saw amazing landscapes on the moon that nobody knew was even there. It’s possible that there was some suspense of something watching him or chasing him, but I’m not sure.
At the end of the story, he was rushing to make it to the landing site on time and very nearly didn’t make it. As he was boarding the ship, he made the comment that they hadn’t even scratched the surface of what there was to learn on the moon.
I read this somewhere in the 90s (in the USA), but it didn’t strike me as a new publication. This was a collection of sci-fi short stories. I think it was geared toward adults, although the content wasn’t in any way inappropriate.
The story I remember was about one or more astronauts that went to visit the moon. Something went wrong and the one astronaut who was walking on the moon was stuck there. Another ship was going to be able to come to get him, but it was going to be a specific window of time (week/month/year?) before they could come back, and the astronaut wouldn’t be able to stay in the same place the whole time for some reason. To survive, he was going to have to walk around the whole moon and end up in the same place at the time the ship arrived to pick him up.
I do remember that he had some sort of nutrition bars he could eat to stay alive, and he went to the bathroom in his spacesuit, which was designed to take the waste, convert it to a pile of dust, and he could squat and expel it from the suit.
While he was walking, he saw amazing landscapes on the moon that nobody knew was even there. It’s possible that there was some suspense of something watching him or chasing him, but I’m not sure.
At the end of the story, he was rushing to make it to the landing site on time and very nearly didn’t make it. As he was boarding the ship, he made the comment that they hadn’t even scratched the surface of what there was to learn on the moon.
2vorkosigan
>1 Dauphine27: I'm sure it's this one, but it was a woman: https://www.baen.com/Chapters/0671878522/0671878522___1.htm
3Dauphine27
That was it, thank you!
4vorkosigan
>3 Dauphine27: You're welcome! I read it too.
5DisassemblyOfReason
touchstone for short story: A Walk in the Sun by Geoffrey A. Landis
(She had to keep walking because her spacesuit's breathing system depended on solar power, so she couldn't afford to be caught by lunar sunset.)
The story seems to be part of The New Hugo Winners: Volume IV.
(She had to keep walking because her spacesuit's breathing system depended on solar power, so she couldn't afford to be caught by lunar sunset.)
The story seems to be part of The New Hugo Winners: Volume IV.
