Andrew Jackson Libby

Andrew Jackson "Slipstick" Libby is a fictional character featured in the so-called "Future History" series of science fiction novels by Robert A. Heinlein. He is an enormously talented and intuitive mathematician, but received little formal education. His talent was first appreciated in the short story Misfit, where he helps guide an asteroid into the correct orbit after the guidance computer has failed.

In Methuselah's Children, it is revealed that later, Libby joins the military, and discovers he is part of the Howard Families, an experiment designed to breed humans with very long lifespans. When the Howards are forced to flee Earth by persecution from the short-lived rest of humanity, Libby provides a way of escape by fitting a "light-pressure" drive to the New Frontiers, the starship they have stolen. When the New Frontiers is later hijacked by alien technology and moved at speeds faster than light, Libby figures out how to reproduce the effect.

When the Howards return home, Libby and Lazarus Long go into business together exploring and colonizing new planets. (Long will later comment that the two of them are single-handedly responsible for the deterioration of Earth, as the galactic diaspora they created caused all the best brains to leave the planet.)

Some time between the events of Methuselah's Children and Time Enough for Love, Libby dies. Long places Libby's body in orbit around the last planet they pioneer, intending to return and...
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