Why was the ship named Albireo in Hal Clement's "Hot Planet"?

Question

In Hal Clement's short story "Hot Planet" (freely available to read online), a group of scientists and engineers are engaged in a mission on the surface of Mercury. Their ship is called the Albireo, and we get an idea of its appearance from the illustration on the cover of the magazine where this story appeared:

The name seemed curious to me, with a hint of Spanish or Italian, so I looked it up and discovered that it's a double star in the constellation of Cygnus. I couldn't figure out the significance (if any) of this name in the story, since the ship's mission isn't an interstellar one.

Is there any particular reason or significance of the name Albireo for the ship in this story?

Answer 1

OK, I'll give it a try.

Hal got his bachelor's' degree in astronomy and was an amateur astronomer and high school science teacher all his life. He loved astronomy and gave public talks on it whenever he could, especially at science fiction conventions. Consequently, he used astronomy in most of his stories and used interesting names from astronomy whenever possible.

In this case, Albireo is the name of one of the classic northern hemisphere double stars shown to students and the public at start parties since it is bright, gets high in the Summer sky, is easily split even in a small instrument, and shows a very strong color difference between its two obvious components. And the word sounds good. It makes a great astronomical name.