The story is 50 years old, and was written less than a decade after the first moon landing. That makes it easy to produce a presentist reading, but not more lik

The story is 50 years old, and was written less than a decade after the first moon landing. That makes it easy to produce a presentist reading, but not more likely such a reading will be useful. It's also not at all hard sf. That doesn't impugn its value, but does mean that you're not going to get anything out of it if you try to read it like you would The Martian.