 How did Hank die?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Analog July 1961. The first man to return from beyond the Great Frontier may be welcomed ... but will it be as a curiosity, rather than as a hero...? There was the usual welcoming crowd for a celebrity, and the usual speeches by the usual politicians who met him at the airport which had once been twenty miles outside of Croton, but which the growing city had since engulfed and placed well within its boundaries. The crowd was quiet, and the mayor didn't seem quite as at-ease as he'd been on his last big welcoming—for Corporal Berringer, one of the crew of the spaceship Washington , first to set Americans upon Mars. His Honor's handclasp was somewhat moist and cold. Still, he was the honored home-comer, the successful returnee, the hometown boy who had made good in a big way, and they took the triumphal tour up Main Street to the new square and the grandstand. There he sat between the mayor and a nervous young coed chosen as homecoming queen, and looked out at the police and fire department bands, the National Guard, the boy scouts and girl scouts, the Elks and Masons. Several of the churches in town had shown indecision as to how to instruct their parishioners to treat him. He had traveled and he had returned and his voyage was very much like the voyages of the great mariners, from Columbus onward—long, dull periods of time passing, passing, and then the arrival. He saw that as soon as the official car let him off at 45 Roosevelt Street. The head of the American Legion and the chief of police, who had escorted him on this trip from the square, didn't ask to go in with him. He walked up what had once been a concrete path and was now an ornate flagstone path. She was still the small, slender girl he'd loved in high school, the small, slender woman he'd married twelve years ago. They held onto each other as if seeking mutual support, the thirty-three-year old woman and ten-year-old boy. So he put him down and told himself that it would all change, that everything would loosen up just as his commanding officer, General Carlisle, had said it would early this morning before he left Washington. Edith was leading him into the living room, her hand lying still in his, a cool, dead bird lying still in his.
 Hank's experimental continent-to-continent flight vessel exploded.
 Hank's spacecraft exploded when it hit Earth's atmosphere on the way home from Mars.  Hank's experimental continent-to-continent flight vessel exploded.  Hank died when he crashed his car on the way to the mission launch.  Hank's spacecraft exploded when it hit Earth's atmosphere on the way home from the moon.