The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut Universe, #1)

by Mary Robinette Kowal

“You’ll do it, right?” There is no possible way to say “no” to an astronaut who is sitting atop what is, essentially, a giant bomb.

Someone had brought gin, and of course that meant we had to experiment with other cocktail variations. For science. Chemistry is a very important part of rocketry.

Do you practice being offensive? Or do you come by it natural?” He winked. “For you? I practice.” Parker looked past me to smile and wave at someone. “I’ll be honest. I needed someone who knew how to talk to women and children. And while I may not like your whole Lady Astronaut routine, you do it well.”

“We have whole conversations without any actual nouns. ‘We were doing an LOI burn, and Sim Sup dropped the FDAI along with the MTVC. Then the LMP saw BMAG fail, and we had an O2 off scale low … Ugh.” “No one’s ever done a manual Lunar Orbit Insertion burn.”