A Walk in the Sun

by Geoffrey A. Landis

Pilots have a saying: a good landing is any landing you can walk away from. In eerie silence, the fragile ship had crumpled and ripped apart like a discarded aluminum can. Wreckage spread out onto the vacuum and across a square kilometer of lunar surface. It would be thirty days before a rescue team could reach the surviving astronaut. This story won the HUGO AWARD.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Space

Audio CD

First published October 1, 1991

Reviews

[Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ · Rating 3 out of 5]

My final Hugo award-winning short fiction review of the day! Review first posted on Fantasy Literature. This story is free online here (it's a freebie sample from a Baen anthology of Hugo award stories):

Patricia Mulligan, the pilot of a three-person spaceship on a mission orbiting the moon, unexpectedly has to crash land the ship on the moon. Trish is the only survivor; the ship is irreparable. She contacts mission control on Earth and ― just before her radio irretrievably breaks down ― is told that the soonest a rescue mission can arrive is in thirty days. Trish has enough food and her spacesuit can recycle water and air, but the suit depends on a fragile solar panel attachment for power to do these functions. There are no power storage cells, and no apparent way to survive the fourteen-day lunar night that will arrive at Patricia’s location in three days. So Trish starts walking, following the sun to try to stay alive until she can be rescued.

This is a fairly straightforward science fiction tale about an astronaut stranded on another world and the extraordinary actions she needs to take to try to survive until rescue can arrive. If that sounds rather familiar, I do think that Andy Weir’s The Martian owes something to this Hugo award-winning short story that was written twenty years earlier. The story is given some additional weight and resonance by Trish’s increasing mental disorientation during her ordeal and her revealing discussions with her dead sister Karen, whom Trish hallucinates as company during her trek.

[Petr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably the closest thing to The Martian I've encountered so far. Very similar topic (survival away from Earth) except without the humor and only a short story, sadly.

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a proper hard scifi story. Plus, it has enough pace and emotion to keep things crisp and memorable.
Recommended.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this story (read it yourself before going on), but one thing really bugged me: why did she have to follow the equator? Note that she clearly does, as she talks about walking twice the distance from New York to Los Angeles, which would be 6 000 miles = 10 000 km = moon's equatorial circumference. It would have saved much time/distance/foot-soreness, not to mention drastically reducing the risk of losing the sun (i.e., dying), for her to follow a circle that goes around the moon but at an angle: she starts at the equator, angles north (to avoid Tycho and its stellated debris fields in the south) such that when she is on the exact opposite side, she is at 75 N or so. This would have cut about a fifth of her distance to travel, meaning that she has almost 6 extra days to take rests or an easier pace. The total time saved would probably be more than that, since this method would vastly reduce the portion of the trip spent on the (apparently) more difficult farside. She might have to hustle a bit at the beginning, but she could take it really easy once she was 1/3 of the way around, resting for a full day if she felt like it. Once she is 75 N north (chosen to ensure that her suit can still get sunlight most of the time without worrying too much about shadows from hills), she can circle around at that same latitude until she is at the right longitude, then head due south, shortening her journey even more. Heading straight north for 2 days at the very beginning (since she has three before sunset comes) could potentially shorten her travel time by another full day. Admittedly terrain would affect all these rough calculations, but distance to travel is reduced to about 7 000 km, less than 3/4 of the distance she walked.

Hard SF is a game where writers try to show they have thought of everything, and readers try to discover that they have not. In this case, I was disappointed that simple geometry (simple for an astronaut anyway) pointed out a much easier solution than the one the author chose for the character. It did not ruin the story for me, but it did prevent me from giving it a higher rating.

[Vira · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice and packed short story. It's funny that we now refer to survival stories by comparison with The Martian as opposed to an older custom of using Robinson Crusoe. Anyway, a good reminder of how to deal with any problem: examine, plan, execute.
The story mainly describes the astronaut herself but has several observations from the side. As for me, the whole story could be just from the point of the main character. It is a very personal experience, and I don't really see the need to switch to anyone else there.

[B.szoke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better than I expected. Decent story.

[Isabel · Rating 3 out of 5]

yeah. pretty much a walk in the sun. space stuff. psychological stuff. straightforward

[Fran Hutton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this story several years ago, probably in a book of Hugo Award winning short stories taken out from the Public Library. But I cannot be sure. If so, it was probably about 15 years ago. What I am sure of is that this story has stuck with me all these years as an absolute favorite of mine. I had forgotten the title and the author and have been on a google search to rediscover this gem that was lost to me. And I found it! What a wonderful reread I have had! If you have not read this short story it is your loss. As a cartographer and GIS coordinator I love all thing geographic, or in this case, lunagraphic. Landis makes mention of numerous named places on our protagonist's walk across the moon. I am hoping someday this trek will actually become a real annual trek across the moon, on par with the Boston Marathon or the Iditarod. It should be, in honor of the heroine, Patricia Mulligan. No spoilers in this...just read it.
I am a sucker for survival stories. For anyone considering real space travel in the future, this is a must read.

[Joe Osborne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love this story especially the audio edition.

[Eija · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kävely auringossa - Portti 3/1992

Tarina kuuhun haaksirikkoutuneesta naisesta, joka käveli kuun ympäri säilyäkseen hengissä selässään kantamiensa aurinkokennojen avulla kunnes pelastajat saapuivat.

[Marissa Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun and tense short story. I gladly went through it in one session.