From the Publisher
"Astronauts are the ultimate high achievers. This remarkable class of space men and women had to be—and do—even more than most. They had to change our very notion of what an astronaut looks like, our collective ideas about who gets to put on a flight suit. They brought us the groundbreaking achievement of Sally Ride, endured the heartbreaking tragedies of the Challenger and Columbia disasters, engineered the triumph of the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station. As we embark on a new era of space travel, The New Guys rockets readers back into the not-so-distant past, telling the propulsive story of a brave and competitive community of explorers—men and women who changed space, and Earth, forever." — Liza Mundy, New York Times bestselling author of Code Girls
"The New Guys is a riveting page-turner that chronicles the first American astronauts to fly the space shuttle, including the first American women and people of color who broke barriers to journey to the stars. Meredith Bagby’s thoroughly researched and finely crafted account captures the highs and lows of life as an astronaut—the grueling training, wild partying, cut-throat competition, and tragic losses of the Challenger and Columbia crews—all with spine-tingling thrills and genuine pathos." — Kyra Sedgwick, actor, director, and producer
“Exciting…An immersive narrative [and] propulsive ride.” — Publishers Weekly
"An enthusiastic account of the NASA astronaut class of 1978…The author has done her homework, writing a gripping account of America’s mature manned space program.” — Kirkus Reviews
“The New Guys will go a long way in telling the story of this historic astronaut class. I hope it will drive more kids to dream of becoming astronauts or of participating in the space program.” — Major General Charles Bolden, Jr., Shuttle Astronaut and NASA’s first African American Administrator
Major General Charles Bolden
Will go a long way in telling the story of this historic astronaut class. I hope it will drive more kids to dream of becoming astronauts or of participating in the space program.”
Kirkus Reviews
2022-11-15
An enthusiastic account of the NASA astronaut class of 1978.
Writer and film producer Bagby reminds readers that every astronaut chosen in the years after 1959 to fly the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs was a White male, and there was only scattered grumbling about the absence of women and minorities. Matters had changed by 1977, when NASA received more than 8,000 applications and chose 35 “lucky souls” to fly the new space shuttle. “Astronaut Class 8 looked like none before it,” writes the author. “Gone were the rows of buzz cuts and dark suits that typified every prior astronaut group.” Most were military officers, but there were also doctors, engineers, chemists, physicists, and astronomers. More significantly, the group had three Black members, one Asian, and six women. These 10 astronauts feature prominently throughout the narrative, which Bagby peppers with invented dialogue and insight into their thoughts, a common approach in the genre. Regardless of style, the author has done her homework, writing a gripping account of America’s mature manned space program, dominated by the shuttle that flew 135 missions from 1981 to 2011, 133 successfully. Its predecessor (the Saturn V rocket and its capsules) completed every mission, but they were built in an era when money was no object. Developed when America no longer feared Soviet technology and was plagued by budget cuts, the shuttle was a hypercomplicated system full of design compromises. Without ignoring the cutthroat politics that regularly trumped the science, Bagby describes a score of shuttle missions in detail, with emphasis on the triumphs (launching and then repairing the Hubble telescope, sending off planetary probes, building the space station) as well as an unnerving number of technological near misses. The two disasters feature prominently, and nearly 100 pages devoted to Challenger in 1986 deliver perhaps more information than general readers want to know—though space buffs will enjoy it.
A capable chronicle of America’s post-Apollo space program.
