A similar theme running through this module’s readings is cold facts versus the will of humanity. In “The Cold Equations,” Marilyn must die because they must save six people with the medicine Barton brings, and that mathematically outweighs her singular life. Even the language used points to the importance of scientific fact over sentimentality. Barton is mostly referred to as “the pilot” or “EDS” while Marilyn is “the girl”, which somewhat strips their humanity away. The close third-person in the pilot’s perspective creates a calculating, matter-of-fact atmosphere. When he’s reading off her information to Records, he categorizes what is important or insignificant data about her.The EDS pilot stresses the fact that she passed through the”Keep Out” sign, a clear law to him, but only a slight hindrance to her. His harping on this one detail sets the tone of the space frontier versus that of Earth. On Earth, those rules don’t matter so much, and for a teenager are expected to be broken. But there is no margin of error for the space explorers.

There’s also images that point to the lack of warmth in science, like the computers determining how long the girl will get to live. But the whole story is about the light of humanity in the dark reaches of space. The recognition of the girl’s life makes everyone pause, from the pilot to the Commander to Records. And maybe it’s a bit sexist? The pilot would have easily killed a man, but solely because she is a girl he cannot. It subtly pointed to some presumption that women were outside of the realm of space, because of the stereotypical nurturing, warm characteristics associated with them. To the pilot, she is everything space doesn’t represent.

What would have happened if Earth knew about this? Imagine if Marilyn’s story was as broadcast as Watney’s was in The Martian. Even the pilot recognizes that if this story had played out on Earth, everyone would have done everything in their power to save her. And that’s what happened with Watney, albeit he was on Mars. He became a symbol, and hundreds of millions of dollars and countless hours of human brain power were used to save him. Excuse the pessimism, but if Watney wasn’t an astronaut and pictures of Mars weren’t widely available, would he have been rescued? Or would people have exhausted themselves as much? Because Marilyn was killed to save a group of people, and a group of people risked their lives to save Watney. The circumstances are different, as those people have a personal connection to Watney, but there’s still something to be said for media attention.

A moment stuck out to me in “Night’s Slow Poison.” Kels is about to shoot Awt, but as soon as he sees the other man’s eyes, he hesitates. And that again signals an interplay between the cold facts of law and humanity, but not in humanity’s favor. In a calculating way, it can be seen as a weakness, but that kind of raw emotion is what defines as humans. It’s kind of conflicting, because you want Kels to just shoot the traitor in the head, but recognize his need to be human. It’s aggravating but in a weird way uplifting at the same time. Actually, are these characters even humans?

A significant detail that struck me in “Down and Out on Ellfive Prime” is that even though Almquist is the prime technician on Ellfive Prime, he doesn’t have the rank to retire there. He is going to be “earthsided,” which basically means returning to a planet full of pollution and garbage because humans ruined the environment and only the wealthy can escape it. It is so easy for the imaginary identifiers of society that we have created to transcend our world, once other options become stable enough. But another characteristic of humanity is resistance, which is exactly what the scams represent, a fight against the 1%. However, that line with Almquist was one of the most humanizing moments for me. Even in space we are not equal.