In Tom Stoppard’s 1972 play Jumpers, set in a near future UK, there’s only enough fuel for one of the first two Englishmen on the moon, Scott or Oates, to get back home. Unlike the doomed 1911 South Pole expedition, in which the wounded Oates sacrificed himself in the hope of saving his comrades, a TV newscaster recounts:
Millions of viewers saw the two astronauts struggling at the foot of the ladder until Oates was knocked to the ground by his commanding officer. … [Scott] closed the hatch with the remark, “I’m going up now. I may be gone for some.”
From the Washington Post opinion section:
A woman on the moon: How has one small step taken so long?
“The first thing you need to do in order to put a woman on the moon is decide that it’s worth putting a woman on the moon”
Perspective by Monica Hesse
ColumnistJanuary 10, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EST
What if they have a leak in the fuel tank on the lunar lander and the cold equations tell them there is only enough propellant left for one of the two diverse astronauts, the white woman or the black man, to make it back home. Who gets intersectional priority?
