Cold Equations

The Cold Equations This short story by Tom Godwin is a very sentimental and lesson learning story. Briefly, it is about a ship on a designated mission which encounters a problem because the pilot on the ship encounters a stowaway, a young girl, and every stowaway found on board must be jettisoned, it was the law and there was absolutely no appeal. Marilyn, the stowaway’s name, was simply a teen and all she wanted was to see her brother whom she hadn’t seen in over 10 years she really meant no harm but she chose to ignore the warning sign in front of the ship. The EDS ships were only equipped with a certain amount of fuel that would reach them only to their designated destination, h amount of fuel would not power an EDS with mass of m plus x safely to it’s destination. Although it was very saddening that the pilot had to kill Marilyn, there was nothing else that could be done. If he would have let her stay on board he would die along with the other 6 men waiting on the EDS for the cure to their survival. In my opinion, his decision was justified, it was the law and he had done all he could do to help the poor girl but it wasn’t merely enough. The first reason to believe that the pilot’s decision was justified was because it was very logical and ethical. He had not other choice it was the law to kill a stowaway on board, no matter if it was a beautiful girl, beauty had no partake in this scenario it wasn’t like Earth. The pilot really did care about Marilyn’s life and he really did not want to kill her but, if it wouldn’t have been done the lives of many others would also have been gone. Although he did not want, he would have had no other choice. Either way there really was no win because if he would have let Marilyn stay on board and not jettisoned her, in the long run she would still have died along with the pilot and the other men counting on the EDS with the fever serum it was carrying. The second reason to believe the pilot’s