Killjoys at NASA cancel Doomsday

[james_davis_nicoll]

"Using updated information, NASA scientists have recalculated the path of a large asteroid. The refined path indicates a significantly reduced likelihood of a hazardous encounter with Earth in 2036."

Fools! Have they never read those books where by creating some false crisis, the steely-eyed rocket men get the money to properly develop manned (and girled) spaceflight for the betterment of Man?

Comments

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

if "manned," then shouldn't it be "wommanned"?

"girled" would indicated "boyed".

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

In those old stories, men were real men but women were just girls. Smelled nice, though.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

Given that I'm currently halfway through copyediting volume 2 of the selected stories of Lester del Rey, I can certainly agree with that statement. Even though I axed the stories which were most blatantly sexist.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Back when Baen was reprinting Laumer and I was getting copies via the SFBC, I believe I may have used the "horrifyingly sexist even for the 1960s" warning. ISTR even Flint warned readers about that aspect of Laumer's work.

[martin-wisse.livejournal.com]

What, no Helen O'Loy?


... Is there anything left? ...

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

Helen O'Loy is actually not as blatantly sexist as some of his other work. It made the cut.

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

That's scary.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

An example of one that didn't make the cut is "The Last Lunacy," which has only appeared once, in the March 1951 issue of Future.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

I'll settle happily for "live-crewed".

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

if "manned," then shouldn't it be "wommanned"?

Not in the stories James is citing, no.

-- Steve can just imagine the pipe our handsome, clean-cut, brilliant hero would take from his lips to correct his plucky girl Friday's misunderstandings.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Blast, I posted too slowly.

-- Steve knew he should've ignored that phone call.

[hattifattener]

Not to be pedantic, but — okay, I admit it, actually to be pedantic, but, even a ship crewed entirely by girls would be “manned” by them. The ”man” in that word is hands, manos, hands of fate style (or “manual”, or “manipulate”, or “all hands on deck”, maybe).

A ship crewed by sentient telekinetic slime-molds would be unmanned, I think.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

A ship crewed by sentient telekinetic slime-molds would be unmanned, I think.

Would that also go for a ship crewed exclusively by eunuchs?

[hattifattener]

Or a ship crewed by people who are so scared they lose their masculine qualities?

[hattifattener]

(Clearly there's some elaborate and not particularly funny pun or shaggy-dog story here about a sentient, crewless ship and its reaction to a terrifying situation.)