The Dry Hiss Of The Stars

Poul Anderson, "Escape from Orbit," see here.

Wister speaks to the men trapped in Lunar orbit:

"He remembered he must wait: two and a half seconds while the beam crossed nothingness and came back. Nearly half a million miles, with atmospherics and Doppler effect and the dry hiss of the stars to battle along the way." (p. 91)

Vacuum is not "nothingness," of course.

That is the physics but the story is also about people. I was disgusted when Wister breakfasted among dirty dishes and washed the coffeepot with difficulty because "...the sink was full too..." (p. 82) However, it turns out that his wife, Flo, is constantly unwell and a nervous wreck. Is this why Wister swapped astronauting for a desk job? Wister, a competent Anderson hero, will solve the technical problem of how to rescue the men trapped in orbit but will his domestic situation have improved before the story ends on p. 100? All that we have to do is to keep reading.

Wister's boss thinks that the Russians will help if they can:

"'Propaganda kudos for them, isn't it, if they bail out the Americans. Besides, they're human too, whatever you think of their government.'" (p. 90)

A pity that we have to keep reminding ourselves that the other guys are human! But human diversity is such that we might be mistaken for different species by an external observer.