The Unexpected

(Regarding the preceding post, I should of course have added that comics have matured since Dan Dare and Jet Ace Logan and that Alan Moore's Miracleman graphically depicted childbirth.)

"The Saturn Game."

Twice the unexpected strikes on Iapetus. First, the glacier shudders, the ridge cracks and falls and the area where three explorers stand splits and topples into a depression with an avalanche pouring after it. Scobie theorises that the explorers' heat and vibrations had caused a methane layer within the metastable configuration to slide out from under them.

Secondly, when Mark Danzig flies the lander to rescue the explorers, an outburst from the glacier engulfs the vehicle which then tumbles and crashes. Scobie thinks that the glacier is a crashed comet. The heat, shock and turbulence of the impact would have scrambled molecules and momentarily generated plasmas, forming new mixtures, compounds and alloys. Danzig theorises that his jets caused some such novel substance to sublime explosively.

Minamoto comments that miscalculations and errors are inevitable when necessarily hasty decisions are made under stress. If the explorers knew what to expect, then they would not need to explore.

Hard sf encompasses both psychology and physics.