"Marooned off Vesta" is a

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the old ...

by American writer

Isaac Asimov Isaac Asimov ( ; – April 6, 1992) was an Russian-born American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. H ...

. It was the third story he wrote, and the first to be published. Written in July 1938 when Asimov was 18, it was rejected by ''

Astounding Science Fiction ''Analog Science Fiction and Fact'' is an American science fiction magazine published under various titles since 1930. Originally titled ''Astounding Stories of Super-Science'', the first issue was dated January 1930, published by William C ...

'' in August, then accepted in October by ''

Amazing Stories ''Amazing Stories'' is an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction. Science fiction stories had made regular appearance ...

'', appearing in the March 1939 issue. Asimov first included it in his 1968 story collection ''

Asimov's Mysteries ''Asimov's Mysteries'', published in 1968, is a collection of 14 short stories by American writer Isaac Asimov, almost all of them science fiction mysteries (although, as Asimov admits in the introduction, some are only borderline). The stories ...

'', and subsequently in the 1973 collection ''

The Best of Isaac Asimov ''The Best of Isaac Asimov'' is a collection of twelve science fiction short stories by American writer Isaac Asimov, published by Sphere in 1973. It begins with a short introduction (six pages in the Doubleday hardcover edition) giving vario ...

''.

Plot summary

"Marooned off Vesta" tells the story of three men who survive the wreck of the spaceship ''Silver Queen'' in the

asteroid belt The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, centered on the Sun and roughly spanning the space between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids ...

and find themselves trapped in

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit (also known as orbital revolution) is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an ...

around the

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

Vesta. They have at their disposal three airtight rooms, one

spacesuit A space suit (or spacesuit) is an environmental suit used for protection from the harsh Space environment, environment of outer space, mainly from its Vacuum (outer space), vacuum as a highly specialized pressure suit, but also its temperatu ...

, three days' worth of air, a week's supply of food, and a year's supply of water. They are initially despondent about their impending suffocation until one of the men is inspired to melt a hole in the water tank. This begins to propel them towards Vesta, where a small community of humans lives. The story accurately portrays the physics and experiences involved with being in

space Space is a three-dimensional continuum containing positions and directions. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions. Modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless ...

, a theme that often re-emerges in Asimov's later works.

Sequel

In 1958, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the story's appearance, Asimov wrote a sequel titled "

Anniversary An anniversary is the date on which an event took place or an institution was founded. Most countries celebrate national anniversaries, typically called national days. These could be the List of national independence days, date of independen ...

", set twenty years after the original. Both stories appeared in the March 1959 issue of ''Amazing Stories'' and later in the collection ''Asimov's Mysteries''.

Reception

Reviewing an anthology including the story,

Algis Budrys Algirdas Jonas "Algis" Budrys (January 9, 1931 – June 9, 2008) was a Lithuanian-American science fiction author, copy editing, editor and critic. He was also known under the pen names Frank Mason, Alger Rome in collaboration with Jerome ...

said "'Marooned off Vesta' was indeed Ike's first sale. His first story came several attempts later". He also described "Anniversary" as "a badly contrived stunt". Asimov wrote in 1973, "Far be it from me to crave indulgence, but I think it is important to understand that at the time I wrote and sold the story (in 1938) I was eighteen years old".

References

External links

* {{Best of Isaac Asimov Fiction about main-belt asteroids Short stories by Isaac Asimov 1939 short stories Works originally published in Amazing Stories 4 Vesta