The Six: The Untold Story of America's First Women Astronauts
Written by Loren Grush
Narrated by Inés del Castillo
5/5
()
About this audiobook
In this account of America’s first women astronauts “Grush skillfully weaves a story that, at its heart, is about desire: not a nation’s desire to conquer space, but the longing of six women to reach heights that were forbidden to them” (The New York Times).
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 8,000 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 46,000 feet. Everyone knows of Sally Ride’s history-making first space ride, but each of the Six would make their mark. “A spirited group biography…it’s hard not to feel awe for these women” (The Wall Street Journal).
Loren Grush
Loren Grush is a reporter for Bloomberg News specializing in all things space. Previously, she was a senior science reporter for the technology news website The Verge and hosted the online show Space Craft, which took her across the country to explore what it takes to train for space. The daughter of two NASA engineers, Grush grew up surrounded by astronauts and Space Shuttles. She has also been published in The New York Times, Popular Science, and Nautilus magazine, and has appeared on several TV networks as an expert commentator. You can find her at LorenGrush.com.
Related to The Six
Related audiobooks
The New Guys: The Historic Class of Astronauts That Broke Barriers and Changed the Face of Space Travel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Apollo 11: The Inside Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Burning Blue: The Untold Story of Christa McAuliffe and NASA's Challenger Disaster Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Apollo 13 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Interstellar: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Our Future in the Stars Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Exceptions: Nancy Hopkins, MIT, and the Fight for Women in Science Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Guardians of the Valley: John Muir and the Friendship that Saved Yosemite Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Wisdom of Plagues: Lessons from 25 Years of Covering Pandemics Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Possibility of Life: Science, Imagination, and Our Quest for Kinship in the Cosmos Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Einstein in Time and Space: A Life in 99 Particles Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here—and Out There Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When the Heavens Went on Sale: The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Being Henry: The Fonz . . . and Beyond Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Medgar and Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story that Awakened America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Facing the Unseen: The Struggle to Center Mental Health in Medicine Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRemembering Peasants: A Personal History of a Vanished World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMaking It So: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Future of Geography: How the Competition in Space Will Change Our World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gator Country: Deception, Danger, and Alligators in the Everglades Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
United States History For You
Killing the Witches: The Horror of Salem, Massachusetts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Land of Delusion: Out on the edge with the crackpots and conspiracy-mongers remaking our shared reality Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of September 11, 2001 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Book of Charlie Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: 2nd Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dragonfire: Four Days That (Almost) Changed America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House of Hidden Meanings: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5John Adams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here—and Out There Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Untold History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Cuba (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize): An American History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and A Legacy of Rage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Six
5 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I’d like to know everyone is listening to or reading this book. Especially girls, but men need to look at the space program from this point of view too. It is amazing how long it has taken for NASA to get those size medium flight suits. A magnificent book. kudos to the author.