Something unexpected happens on the first flight of astronauts around the Moon.

Like "Everest,” this is a story that was outdated about two seconds after it first appeared in print, so Asimov waited over twenty years before anthologizing it. In fact, I first read this story in a non-Asimov anthology a decade before Asimov got around to putting it into any of his books. Since it was so instantly and obviously out-of-date, and since I was young enough not to see past that to the idea underlying the story, I didn’t care for it and that has prejudiced me against it. And yet, it is a rather weird story, so I don’t think my dislike for it is entirely blind prejudice. The characters aren’t memorable, and the basic set-up—that astronauts are being sent through a psychological experiment without their knowledge—verges on the sadistic.

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