Which Sci-Fi novel is this from?

Cafe Society
1

I remember reading a short story many many years ago contained in a book of Sci Fi short stories by either Clark or Asimov or Heinlein or Bradbury, but I can’t remember the name of the book. I’m hoping that if I list some of the details of the short story someone can list name the book.
The short story was basically about an exodus of unwanted people from crowded city areas of Earth to colonies elsewhere (Mars?) by signing on to crew rocket ships. In the story, the main computer of one of the ships fails mid-flight and one of the unwanted refugees calculates all the data needed to land the ship by hand.

Does anyone remember this story or the book that it was from?

2

It sounds like it could be a part of James Blish’s Cities in Flight series, which included novels and short stories. Been a long time since I read it, so I don’t recall the details, but the setup sounds similar.

3

The bit about someone calculating the data by hand is reminscient of Heinlein’s “Starman Jones”

4

Or “Slipstick” Libby in Heinlein’s “Misfit.”

5

Into the comet by Clarke.

6

But in STARMAN JONES hand-calculating all the orbits and so on is standard operating procedure (something I bounced off hard when I first read the book nearly 30 years ago).

7

It sounds like this to me. Libby was a mathematics savant and invented a faster than light drive in “Methuselah’s Children”.

8

I think your memory is mixing two different stories. The ACC story listed above and the Blish stuff. Or some other couple of similar stories.

9

True.

10

‘Slipstick’ Libby did it all the time.

Bob

11

That was it. Thank you!

12

Excellent. Libby wasn’t a refugee, though; he was a draftee assigned to the equivalent of a Civilian Conservation Corps project in space