[db105]

I read it in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964. The story is perfectly fine, IMO. I understand it bothers some people nowadays because female characters should have agency or something, and why oh why the writer did not allow a workaround. But the story is powerful, and the decision not to find any workaround is 100% the right one for this story. With a workaround, it would be one more SF story about engineering problem solving, perfectly forgettable. As it is, it has impact.

The writer loads the dice so that there's no way out? Sure, so what, that's why there is a story to tell. That's the whole point. If they had ballast to throw out just in case, there would be no story.

As for why they did not explore in more details other possibilities... I assume they did not overlook anything obvious, but it's not explored in detail because the story is just not about that. I feel like we are so unused to short stories nowadays that people can not conceive of a story getting to the point, but this is how many of these old SF stories used to be: Just an idea (math doesn't care about your feelings) and go for it. If you don't like it, well, move on, it's not like there aren't plenty of stories where math cares about your feelings.