The classic science fiction story "The Cold Equations" by Tom Godwin tells of the pilot of an Emergency Dispatch Ship, or EDS, who discovers a stowaway aboard while he is delivering vital medical supplies to a remote colony. If the pilot, whose name is Barton, does not safely deliver the serum, six men will die. If he does not jettison the stowaway into space before a pre-determined altitude has been reached, the EDS will crash and Barton, the stowaway, and the six men will all die.

The weight of the ship, the pilot, and the stowaway in relation to the fuel on board are the cold equations referred to in the title. When Barton realizes that the stowaway is actually an 18-year-old girl, he does everything he can to try to find an alternative to jettisoning her. However, he can't get around the facts.

H amount of fuel will not power an EDS with a mass of m plus x safely to its destination. To himself and her brother and parents she was a sweet-faced girl in her teens; to the laws of nature she was x, the unwanted factor in a cold equation.

In the future technology of this story, there is no room at all for human choice and emotions. Because the equations are accurate, the girl has to die so that seven other lives can be saved.

In fact, this story was controversial when it came out and even more controversial as time passed and technology became more sophisticated. The story does seem to imply that the technology triumphs over human emotions, but in fact numerous scientists, engineers, and writers have pointed out that Godwin makes the boundaries of his equations unrealistically strict. Real engineers would design in a fuel supply that allows for a margin of error. As the catastrophes in NASA's history have shown us, crisis situations can happen by not heeding insignificant details, and so scientists and engineers always attempt to compensate for deviations.

As renowned science fiction writer Cory Doctorow pointed out in an essay on "The Cold Equations" and moral hazard, the situation in the story is a contrivance of the author that would not occur in a real engineering situation. As mentioned above, the engineers would have factored in fuel for emergencies, or the ship would have an autopilot so the pilot would have the option of sacrificing himself, or the colony would have better protected its supply of vital vaccine. In short, Doctorow accuses Godwin of intellectual dishonesty.

In conclusion, yes, the situation that technology brings about in "The Cold Equations" leaves little room for human choice and emotions. However, leaving these important considerations out is not necessarily a trend as technology continues to advance.

The story's title does not mention technology at all. An equation may refer to mathematics or, more generally, to a relationship between any two concepts. The use of cold may imply actual weather conditions or an emotional attitude.

The captain must make a decision that benefits the largest number of people. He is sympathetic with Marilyn, although she behaved irresponsibly and impulsively. Captain Barton must keep a level head so that he does not kill or endanger many innocent people. His demeanor must be calm and detached, which some would consider cold. In contrast, the girl was hot-headed or overly emotional. She took a bold action without having adequate information on which to base her decision.

In the story, technology was not effectively used to protect the ship. Marilyn's presence was not detected until it was too late, which put the burden on the captain to remove her. This seems to be a design flaw, as the people who put the operating system in place failed to incorporate stowaway detection.

The title “The Cold Equations” implies that, at some unspecified point in the future, important life or death decisions will be taken out of the hands of humans and determined instead by the dictates of cold, mathematical logic. On this reading, technology will have advanced to such a stage that human beings will effectively be absolved of the responsibility of making hard moral decisions. Like everything else in this future society, such decisions will be made for us by the demands of technology.

Yet the picture presented by the story is not quite so uniformly bleak as this would suggest. “The Cold Equations” shows us that, so long as human beings are around, the option of exercising moral choice will still be a live one, though in a much more restricted sense than at present. Barton follows the rules, but crucially does allow Marilyn to contact her brother one last time before she's ejected into space. The cold equations involved in making this life and death decision are faithfully adhered to, but Barton's actions show that it's still nonetheless possible to retain an element of humanity, whatever stage of technological development we may reach.

"The Cold Equations" absolutely underscores the role of technology in undermining human choice; the title itself, using the adjective 'cold,' connotes a lack of warmth and human perspective.  The plot of the story revolves around a young girl who has stowed away on a space transport; upon discovery of the stowaway, the pilot of the ship has no choice but to force-eject her from the ship.  The ship, the Stardust, is bound for a planet desperate for the life-saving medical supplies. 

The Stardust does not have enough fuel to reach its far away destination, Woden, with the added weight of the girl, so ultimately the logistics of the flight plan, the cold equations of amount of fuel versus distance, determines the outcome of the story.  Ultimately, the young girl Marilyn realizes that for many others on Woden to live, she must die.  The circumstances of the story seem extreme and otherworldly to the reader; Godwin's story definitely uses the metaphor of the space ship to explore larger concerns of science versus human understanding.