by ronde
You have a wealth of knowledge about many things. It makes your stories stand out. 5 stars
Reminds me of what Heinlein might have published, if Campbell's editorial assistant hadn't been such a blue-nose.
5-stars, of course
Not bad. Not to be a complete killjoy. But, if a ship can "grind" a flat surface on the asteroid. Wouldn't it make more sense to grind the whole asteroid and dump the ruble into the furnaces? Cut out all the humans and risk.
Just a few comments. The average fire cracker releases 150 joules of energy. One stick of dynamite is 1 MG, so maybe you lost either a kilo or mega on the joule as 100 joule charges would only scare a cat. Also, no one in their right mine (pun intended) would bolt a non-self-contained atmospheric shelter onto a asteroid and then start setting off charges, just for the reasons you gave. You have no idea when it might crack up and kill everyone. When you go into space, the gold standard is triply redundant systems with graceful degradation to prevent sudden death, which when it could be yours, is a job benefit. So you would never set off a charge without being in atmospheric shelter with suits so if things really went sideways, you could make it to the adjacent escape pods.
Finally, human to human sex requires a sense of self and a theory of how the other person thinks, otherwise, they can't give pleasure, only repetition without feeling. So the basic theory behind Barbara's design would not work.
For goodness sake nitpicking on the details is not needed, this is a story, the authour generally gets things pretty accurate in histroric or modern settings but this is pure fiction so it is his reality not the real world. Practically everything on here has the odd error as does professionaly produced stuff with paid editors. Just read and enjoy or stop reading if you aren't and go on to another FREE story rather than read and then complain.
Wow! Blade Runner wirh a twist! Great yarn, well told. Believable as though we were there.
I'm loving your work.
I'm an engineer, sci-fi fan and I enjoyed your story. Well done! Finn