Venture to the Moon is a group of six linked science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 short stories

Short Stories

Short Stories may refer to:*A plural for Short story*Short Stories , an American pulp magazine published from 1890-1959*Short Stories, a 1954 collection by O. E...

 by Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke

Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...

. It was originally published in Evening Standard

Evening Standard

The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...

in 1956. The stories describe the first manned mission to the Moon in 1975, as a joint American-Russian-British mission, and are narrated in first person from the point of view of the British team commander. Despite the death described in the third story, they are written in a humorous vein. They are collected in The Other Side of the Sky

The Other Side of the Sky

For the Memoir by Farah Ahmedi, See The Other Side of the Sky: A MemoirThe Other Side of the Sky is a collection of short stories by science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke originally published in 1958...

.

Plot summary

• "The Starting Line" tells of the launch of the first lunar expedition jointly by British, American and Russian rocket
  Rocket
  A rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction...
  
  s which have been assembled in Earth orbit. The plan is for all three ships to leave Earth orbit and land simultaneously, but the narrator has secretly been ordered to depart ahead of the other two ships.
• "Robin Hood FRS" tells of the efforts by the joint expedition members to recover an automatic supply rocket that has landed just out of reach, through the unorthodox method of utilising one team member's archery skills.
• "Green Fingers" describes how a Russian team member - a botanist - secretly engineers plant life that could survive on the Moon's surface, and the accident that causes his death.
• "All that Glitters" deals with a geophysicist who discovers diamonds on the moon - only to learn that back on Earth, synthetic diamonds have just been successfully created at negligible cost.
• "Watch this Space" tells how a scientific experiment conducted on the moon - creating a giant sodium cloud that is made luminescent by the sun's rays and visible from Earth - is sabotaged by "the greatest advertising coup" in history.
• "A Question of Residence" tells of how at the end of the mission one of the ships would have to stay behind to clean up their equipment while the others return and get the early glory, and how the British team end up volunteering... in order to take advantage of a legal loophole so they can sell their stories tax-free.