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"Red Star, Winter Orbit" is a short story written by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling in the 1980...

"Red Star, Winter Orbit" is a short story written by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling in the 1980's and published in Gibson's Burning Chrome collection of short fiction. The story is set in an alternate future where the Soviet Union controls most of the Earth's resources, especially oil. As a result of this the United States is no longer a dominant economic power on earth and the Soviets have won the space race. Science fiction critic Takayuki Tatsumi regards the story as a descriptive account of "the failure of the dream of space exploration", reminiscent of Ballard's "inner space/outer space" motif. Gibson scholar Tatiani Rapatzikou commented that the motif of the space station was used by the authors as a "symbol of the tension and uneasiness the characters or readers experience every time they deal with the artificiality of their technological world". The story takes place on the Soviet space station Kosmograd ("Cosmic City"), which consists of a number of Salyuts linked together. The station has both civilian and military roles; the military portion is a base for the operation for two large particle beam weapons for shooting down ICBMs. The civilian side, once a hub for space