The Six

The Untold Story of America’s First Women in Space 

By Loren Grush

Published by Virago; Dist. by Hachette

RRP $34.99 in paperback

ISBN 9780349015217

The six of the title was an extraordinary cohort of women recruited by NASA in the seventies.

My first thought on seeing the title: did any of the first six women astronauts die in the Challenger disaster in 1986?

The answer, sadly, is yes. Judy Resnik, one of the six, was one of two women who died in the Challenger disaster. The other woman was teacher and non-astronaut Christa McAuliffe, who was handpicked from more than eleven thousand applicants.

The loss of the Challenger and its impact on the five remaining women astronauts is covered in detail.

Of the others, Sally Ride became the first American woman to go into space in 1983. Anna Fisher was assigned to her first space flight while pregnant.

While this engrossing book explores the women’s journey through NASA’s outreach programme, rigorous tests and training, sexism, press attention, and the solidarity with which they overcame obstacles and launched into space, it acknowledges too that their success was hard won against the entrenched ideas of the time.

Verdict: Throughout history, the contribution of women has been routinely overlooked so it is good to see an acknowledgement of the contribution these women made to the space program.

And yes, it is a departure from the types of books I normally feature on this blog, but then, there are always exceptions to every rule. – Ed.