seeking sf short story about spaceship

[redqueen42]

I'm trying to find a short story I read in grade school. It was written in the early 90s or before. It's possibly a kids or young adults story.

A crew in a spaceship found that some of their monitoring instrumentation they needed to reenter the earth's atmosphere had broken down. Without it they are stuck in space. The crew decides that one person can ride on the outside of the spaceship in a spacesuit and manually do whatever the equipment did. However, that person will burn to death upon reentry. They all draw straws and the mean crew member that no one likes is chosen to be sacrificed. He doesn't complain and is able to sacrifice himself to save the rest of the crew.

I think that it appeared in an anthology that had a lurid pink cover with an alligator on it, but that might not be an accurate memory.

I would be greatly appreciative of any help to figure this out. Thanks in advance!