11/28/2022
In this exciting if speculative chronicle, Bagby (Rational Exuberance), a film and TV producer, presents the stories of NASA’s class of 1978, the first to include women and people of color. Drawing on nearly 100 interviews with the “New Guys,” she dramatizes their time in the space program, homing in on such figures as Anna Lee Fisher, the first mother to go to space, and Frederick Gregory, the first Black astronaut to command the space shuttle. Beginning with the recruitment process in 1977, the author follows the class through training and historic “first” flights, offering a devastating play-by-play of the Challenger explosion and concluding in 2011 as the financial crisis brought space missions to a standstill. Bagby admits that she takes “liberties” with the truth and imagines how the figures “likely may have thought and felt,” such as when she writes that as Judith Resnik sought a meeting with Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins, “The wind carried a cool dewiness that she associated with new beginnings.” This novelistic approach results in an immersive narrative, even if there’s not much new to those familiar with the program’s history. Space buffs willing to look past the historical conjecture will find a propulsive ride. (Feb.)
"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
January LaVoy's engaging performance enlivens this history of NASA's space shuttle program and its diverse 1978 astronaut class, dubbed "The New Guys" (TNGs). Among them were numerous firsts, including the first American woman (Sally Ride) and the first African American (Guion Bluford) to go to space. TNGs' personal lives and professional contributions are interwoven with the development of the shuttle program and its missions. Getting to know them through LaVoy's emotionally attuned narration, alongside the heady excitement of the new frontier in space exploration, makes the loss of team members in the tragic CHALLENGER (1986) and COLUMBIA (2003) shuttle explosions feel painfully fresh. Her assured performance is grounding during these difficult chapters. This production will be a welcome experience for general listeners and space aficionados alike. J.R.T. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
January LaVoy's engaging performance enlivens this history of NASA's space shuttle program and its diverse 1978 astronaut class, dubbed "The New Guys" (TNGs). Among them were numerous firsts, including the first American woman (Sally Ride) and the first African American (Guion Bluford) to go to space. TNGs' personal lives and professional contributions are interwoven with the development of the shuttle program and its missions. Getting to know them through LaVoy's emotionally attuned narration, alongside the heady excitement of the new frontier in space exploration, makes the loss of team members in the tragic CHALLENGER (1986) and COLUMBIA (2003) shuttle explosions feel painfully fresh. Her assured performance is grounding during these difficult chapters. This production will be a welcome experience for general listeners and space aficionados alike. J.R.T. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
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.