When NASA sent astronauts to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s the agency excluded women from the corps, arguing that only military test pilots—a group then made up exclusively of men—had the right stuff. Eventually, though, NASA realized its blunder and opened the application process to a wider array of hopefuls, regardless of race or gender. From a candidate pool of 8,000, six elite women were selected in 1978: Sally Ride, Judy Resnik, Anna Fisher, Kathy Sullivan, Shannon Lucid, and Rhea Seddon.
A spirited group biography ... Illuminates the particular challenges the groundbreakers faced ... One gets the sense that the author is intent on remaining upbeat ... Still, the impulse to be celebratory is understandable, not least because the women took such obvious pride and pleasure in their work.
Grush skillfully weaves a story that, at its heart, is about desire: not a nation’s desire to conquer space, but the longing of six women to reach heights that were forbidden to them ... A six-pronged biography is necessarily sweeping rather than intimate, and it’s hard not to want to know more about each woman’s motivations and hesitations. Grush’s richly researched account shines when she can offer those insights ... She resists the urge to put the Six on a pedestal, and avoids Hollywoodizing their relationships with one another ... The day-to-day work of the astronauts — surprisingly mundane — makes for fascinating reading.
Vivid ... Grush paints a compelling picture of the rigours faced by these driven and accomplished women ... An important record of their achievements so far.
