Women in Space
23 Stories of First Flights, Scientific Missions, and Gravity-Breaking Adventures
2014
First Published
3.60
Average Rating
240
Number of Pages
When Valentina Tereshkova blasted off aboard Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963, she became the first woman to rocket into space. It would be 19 years before another woman got a chance—cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982—followed by American astronaut Sally Ride a year later. By breaking the stratospheric ceiling, these women forged a path for many female astronauts, cosmonauts, and mission specialists to follow. Women in Space profiles 23 pioneers, including Eileen Collins, the first woman to command the space shuttle; Peggy Whitson, who logged more than a year in orbit aboard the International Space Station; and Mae Jemison, the first African American woman in space; as well as astronauts from Japan, Canada, Italy, South Korea, France, and more. Readers will also learn about the Mercury 13, American women selected by NASA in the late 1950s to train for spaceflight. Though they matched and sometimes surpassed their male counterparts in performance, they were ultimately denied the opportunity to head out to the launching pad. Their story, and the stories of the pilots, physicists, and doctors who followed them, demonstrate the vital role women have played in the quest for scientific understanding.
Avg Rating
3.60
Number of Ratings
136
5 STARS
13%
4 STARS
47%
3 STARS
31%
2 STARS
7%
1 STARS
2%
goodreads
Author
Karen Bush Gibson
Author · 5 books
Karen Bush Gibson (also known as K.B. Gibson and Karen Gibson) has been writing, well, forever. She has written a little bit of everything, but got her start writing articles and features for magazines. Karen began writing children's nonfiction in 2001 with Capstone and loves bringing nonfiction to life for kids. Since then, she has worked with several publishers, including Chicago Review Press and Nomad Press. Karen has more than 30 books published (stopped counting at 30) and stays so busy that she's having trouble returning to her other love, mystery writing. "A Class on Murder" was released in 2012.
