A Bad Town for Spacemen

In Short

Returning from the Mars colony to Earth, an experienced space traveler navigates a profoundly altered New York City where old havens are gone and public hostility has replaced admiration. Seeking solace in a bar, he confronts an embittered, aging former pilot whose deep-seated resentment lays bare the harsh biological truth that made space travel possible only for certain men. The story has endured as a sharp speculative lens on terrestrial prejudice, examining how frontier expansion and domestic bigotry intersect when the pioneers return home.

The Story

The narrator touches down in New York after a successful run to Mars, immediately sensing a sharp hostility that replaces the genuine interest and friendly curiosity of earlier days. Pushed through a tedious gauntlet of security and health checks, he finds the city bleak and rundown, its streets littered and its buildings crumbling. Against his better judgment, he slips away into a public bar, seeking the kind of warm memories he once associated with Earth. The room goes silent upon his entrance, and he takes an isolated table to nurse a drink from an authentic-seeming, yet phony, mechanical dispenser. Surrounded by loud patrons, a green-haired pro-girl, and a growing buzz of alcohol, he begins to relax and tap his foot to the music. His quiet enjoyment triggers a hostile local man who stumbles over, drops into the chair opposite him, and aggressively demands why he is smiling. A barbed exchange ensues regarding the economic value of the space colonies and the rare natural resources, such as uranium, windstones, and sandgems, that the spacers bring back to a depleted Earth. The local man rages that Earth neither needs nor wants anything from the spacers, prompting the narrator to point out that Carversville and the colonies are entirely self-sufficient. As the argument cools into a heavy sense of mutual loneliness, the local man turns reflective, lamenting the cruel stroke of biological luck that kept him grounded. He recalls how space radiation proved lethal to almost all types of men, and how scientists ultimately discovered that only a specific level of skin melanin provided natural immunity. The bitter truth emerges that the space pioneers were chosen by biology rather than purely traditional qualifications, dashing the old pilot's lifelong dream of opening new worlds. With a final, venomous racial slur, the local man lays bare the foundational animosity driving the city's decay. Leaving the bar unprovoked and well-trained in restraint, the narrator wanders all the way back to the spacefield fence. Standing beneath the looming silhouette of the starship that will take colonists away tomorrow, he looks up at the stars, realizes where his true home lies, and reverses his pity to sorrow for those left behind.

How It Unfolds

The return from space The narrator arrives back on Earth from the Mars colony, immediately noticing that the once-welcoming security checks and public attitudes have curdled into bureaucratic hostility and cold indifference.

Seeking old comforts Ignoring his better instincts, he wanders into a public bar in New York City, hoping to reclaim the friendly atmosphere he remembers from the early days of space exploration.

The confrontation begins An angry, aging local patron notices the narrator's cheerful demeanor and confronts him, bitterly dismissing the valuable resources and minerals brought back from the colonies.

Uncovering the biological truth The conversation shifts to the lethal radiation of space and the scientific realization that natural immunity depended entirely on having enough melanin in the skin.

The realization at the fence After walking back to the spacefield through crumbling, neglected streets, the narrator looks up at his ship and the stars, recognizing that the bitter earthbound population are the true exiles.

The People

The narrator is a seasoned space traveler who has spent time establishing off-world colonies on Mars and Venus. He wants simple hospitality and a quiet drink upon returning to Earth, but he faces rising hostility and systemic rejection. Trained to exercise extreme restraint in the face of provocation, he ultimately shifts from self-pity to a profound, clear-eyed pity for the citizens of a decaying planet.

The aging local man is a former jet pilot whose lifelong dream of becoming a space pioneer was stolen by circumstance. He wants to feel valued in a world that has passed him by, but his ambitions clash bitterly with the reality of who was physically able to make the journey into the stars. Consumed by regret and deep-seated prejudice, he lashes out at the narrator, eventually exposing the painful biological divide that bars him from the frontier.

The green-haired pro-girl represents the casual, degraded social atmosphere of the modern New York bar. She wants little more than to mock the outsider, using the narrator's presence as a quick source of amusement before the heavier confrontation unfolds.

In Its Own Voice

The neon of the bar across the street flickered redly on my uniform.

The narrator observes his immediate surroundings after stepping out of the slush and heading into an unfamiliar Manhattan establishment.

"Buddy, do you know what you can do with your sandgems and your windstones?"

The angry local man dismisses the economic contributions of the space colonies during their tense table confrontation.

"Just a matter of enough melanin in the skin. That's all...."

The local man articulates the biological reality that dictated who could survive space radiation and become a pioneer.

What It's Really About

The story explores the paradox of human expansion paired with domestic regression. While humanity conquers the stars and unlocks rich alien worlds, society on Earth contracts, decays, and hardens its internal divisions. The narrative examines how technological progress and biological necessity intersect with historical patterns of racial exclusion, suggesting that bigotry can poison even humanity's greatest outward triumphs. It questions who truly benefits from new frontiers when the home civilization remains chained to old hatreds, turning the ostensible masters of Earth into spiritual exiles in their own birthplace.

Why Read It Today

Readers who appreciate mid-century speculative fiction driven by character interaction and sharp social commentary will find this a compelling piece. Robert Scott writes with a direct, grounded prose style that avoids futuristic gloss, instead anchoring its science fiction premise in the gritty, asphalt-and-slush reality of early 1960s New York. Reading it feels like uncovering a forgotten conversation about the human cost of prejudice, capturing a moody, nocturnal atmosphere that lingers long after the final page. Modern readers should approach it prepared for the explicit period language and raw racial hostility embedded directly in the text, which the author uses unflinchingly to expose the ugliness of terrestrial bigotry. The story's strength lies in its refusal to offer easy resolutions, leaving the reader with a striking final image of a spaceman looking back at a crumbling, left-behind world.