First published in Galaxy Science Fiction (November 1952 issue) by Isaac Asimov and republished in their UK (volume 3 issue #3, March 1953) and French (issue #37, December 1956) branches. This Novelette is Dr Asimov's attempt at an anti-McCarthyism story and is especially notable for predicting euphoria during spacewalks.
Ted Long, a second-generation colonistnote , is trying out the Scavenger trade partially because he's fascinated by the culture of the frontier colony of Mars. He also keeps an eye on Earth politics, aware of how much the nascent colonies still depend on the original homeworld. He finds that one politician, John Hilder, a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Joseph McCarthy, has built a rhetoric around the ways in which space travel and the colonies are "wasting" Earth's resources.
Fast-forward a year, and the Scavengers are stuck at home because the Commissioner had declared a moratorium until Earth has decided how it would enforce its new insistence on water conservation. Rumour/fear is that Earth plans to refuse to send any water whatsoever, which would cause the colony to collapse. So Ted convinces a group of Scavengers to tackle a task no-one else has ever tried; a year-long trip to Saturn to collect ice from the rings.
"The Martian Way" has been republished many times: Urania (issue #7, May 1953, as well as issues #169-173, and issue #1442), The Martian Way And Other Stories (1955), Worlds To Come (1967), The Science Fiction Hall Of Fame, Volume Two B (1973), The Best Of Isaac Asimov (1973), Titan 12 (1979), Isaac Asimov Presents: The Great Science Fiction Stories, Volume 14 (1952) (1986), Robot Dreams Collection (1986), Other Worlds Of Isaac Asimov (1987), The Asimov Chronicles: Fifty Years of Isaac Asimov (1989), The Mammoth Book Of Vintage Science Fiction: Short Novels of the 1950s (1990), and The Complete Stories, Volume 2 (1992).
"The Martian Way" contains examples of:
- Asteroid Thicket: Averted and explained, where it's said that perhaps the spaceships didn't have to waste propellant to go around the asteroid belt, since, while on map it looks like a swarm of insects, it would take a serious stroke of bad luck to hit a rock.
- Awful Wedded Life: The Swenson family has a rough relationship, where Dick will spend months out in space, scavenging old rocket parts. His wife, Dora, considers herself a widow during that time, raising their son Peter alone. She takes out her frustrations on him when he returns, shrewishly scolding him for being gone for so long, until he's full of resentment and leaves. By the time he comes back, he's forgotten about their fights.
- Colonized Solar System: In this story, there are colonies on The Moon, Venus, and Mars. Said colonies are still new, needing resources. They live in Domed Hometown structures and despite recycling everything, still need resources from Earth. This weakness is turned into a weapon by one of Earth's politicians.
- Domed Hometown: Mars is one of several colonies that require sealed habitation. The planet hasn't been terraformed, so many things that we take for granted, such as air and water, are strictly monitored and recycled.
- This is apparently the reason Martians can tolerate long space voyages better than Earthers — for them, a spaceship is just a somewhat smaller version of the living conditions they're accustomed to.
- Go Mad from the Isolation: Averted. Ted Long's proposal to harvest Saturn's rings for water is met with initial skepticism because "everybody knows" that people go crazy if they're cooped up in a spaceship that long. Long points out that Scavengers routinely stay in space for long periods, even when they could easily head back to Mars at any time. Sure enough, the voyage from Mars to Saturn and back goes off without any problems in that regard.
- Gone Horribly Right: John Hilder, a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Joseph McCarthy, has built a rhetoric around the ways that the Colonized Solar System is bleeding resources away from Earth, exploiting the average person's resentment at other people having a bigger piece of the pie to decrease funding and enact an embargo against the Martian colonists because they "waste" Earth's water. The protagonists fetch a chunk of ice from Saturn and tow it back to Mars. They return, after one year, with more water than Earth would have sent them in two hundred years, making Hilder's "anti-waste" campaign look ridiculous.
- Interplanetary Voyage: Travel between Earth or the colonies isn't very easy yet. Most of the story takes place out in space, as the protagonists travel around the solar system. The biggest trip is the inaugural effort of Martian colonists to the rings of Saturn, with the goal of capturing some of the ice and bringing it back to Mars.
- Mars Needs Water: In this novelette, spacecraft use water from Earth as reaction mass. To stir up anti-Martian sentiment as part of his campaign, an Earth politician named "Hilder" (though Asimov planned it as an attack on Senator McCarthy) says that spacers are using up Earth's water. In response, the Martians go to Saturn and haul home one of the ice chunk asteroids which make up Saturn's rings, providing them with enough water to last 2000 years. The Martians snarkily offer to sell Earth some to "make up for" the minuscule amount of Earth water they've used over the years.
- The Namesake: Ted Long, our protagonist and colonist of Mars, is obsessed with what he calls "The Martian Way". To him, it is the frontier spirit/culture that has developed due to their distance from Earth. Many things are "The Martian Way" for him, but midway through the story, during the trip to Saturn, he talks about how building more colonies and expanding human civilization is the destiny of Martian colonists, not Grounders from Earth.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: John Hilder, and his anti-Waster campaign, is a mockery of Joseph McCarthy and his Red Scare campaign. Hilder calls for an embargo on trade with Mars, as a strategy to start forcing the colonies of the inner solar system to shut down.
- One World Order: There's not much said about the world government, but it is implied to essentially be the same branches as the USA's. The General Assembly is a legislative branch with committees and Assemblyman Hilder is aiming to become the next Global Co-ordinator. The colonies appear to have their own local governments because they sign trade deals with Earth.
- Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Inverted. The return trip from Saturn to Mars is described as requiring five weeks at a fierce acceleration. This five-week trip would require less than a tenth of an Earth gravity, or very close to a quarter of a Martian gravity.
- Settling the Frontier: The Colonized Solar System is in its infancy, and each colony represents a drain on Earth's resources because they're still growing. This is extremely common in frontier societies because the growing colonies are usually not immediately self-sufficient. The distance and hardships of colonizing also cause the culture of colonies to shift away from the parent society. Martian colonists have a number of traits that distinguish them from their "Grounder" counterparts.
- Space Madness: Discussed. It's generally believed that people can't stand being out in space for longer than six months (even on large ships with plenty of entertainment options), which would rule out the proposed expedition to Saturn. However, Ted Long points out that many Scavengers have been on trips longer than that in much less luxurious craft without ill effects. Granted, those trips were within the inner Solar System, allowing them to return to Mars anytime they wanted to... but they didn't want to, because they were comfortable with life in space.
- Sports Widow: Dora Swenson complains to her husband that she hates the way he would spend months away from home, wishing that he would find employment in any other job, as long as it was on Mars, so that they could actually live together and he would be present to help her raise their son, Peter."You can make a decent, honorable living right here on Mars, just like everybody else. I'm the only one in this apartment house that's a Scavenger widow. That's what I am- a widow. I'm worse than a widow, because if I were a widow, I'd at least have a chance to marry someone else-"
