$1,000 a Plate

Dr. Morton and his team at the Mars Observatory have a problem: every year, the local Marsy Gras celebration fills the sky with skyrocket trails, ruining their expensive photographic plates. So they do what any reasonable scientist would do: manipulate the casino owners with fake horoscopes predicting gambling success. When that plan collapses and they're ordered to stop their unscientific scheming, the scientists make their own fireworks with predictably disastrous results, including destroying a casino owner's home. It's a charming piece of mid-century SF that treats science as something humans do, with all the petty scheming and hubristic problem-solving that implies. The twist ending where disaster actually benefits everyone is pure comic timing.