"What's It Like Out There?" is probably Hamilton's best known story, certainly his most reprinted, and arguably his best. It concerns an astronaut, Frank Haddon, who has returned from the second Mars expedition and his adjustment back to civilian life on Earth.
A victim of Martian sickness, Haddon had just been released from the hospital in Arizona, where the Mars program is headquartered. Before he goes home, he has to honor some promises to visit the families of some of the men who didn't come back. As he travels, everyone wants to know what it's like out there. They usually don't bother to listen to the reply, or try to tell him how dry/cold/etc. it's been locally.
The truth is that the whole experience was a living hell. Yet he can't bring himself to hurt the grieving families and finances with the facts, so he makes things up about how they died. Rather than pain, their passings are peaceful; rather than shot as a muntineer, one's death is described as an accident.
