The Six: The Untold Story of Americas First Women Astronauts (Large Print)

Description

In the bestselling tradition of Hidden Figures and Code Girls the remarkable true story of Americas first women astronauts--six extraordinary women each making history going to orbit aboard NASAs Space Shuttle. 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. It was an era in which women were steered away from jobs in science and deemed unqualified for space flight. Eventually though NASA recognized its blunder and opened the application process to a wider array of hopefuls regardless of race or gender. From a candidate pool of 8000 six elite women were selected in 1978--Sally Ride Judy Resnik Anna Fisher Kathy Sullivan Shannon Lucid and Rhea Seddon. In The Six acclaimed journalist Loren Grush shows these brilliant and courageous women enduring claustrophobic--and sometimes deeply sexist--media attention undergoing rigorous survival training and preparing for years to take multi-million-dollar payloads into orbit. Together the Six helped build the tools that made the space program run. One of the group Judy Resnik sacrificed her life when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded at 46000 feet. Everyone knows of Sally Rides history-making first space ride but each of the Six would make their mark.