Promised the Moon: The Untold Story of the First Women in the Space Race

by Stephanie Nolen

Book Overview

A female world-record-setting pilot, Jerrie Cobb was recruited in 1959 to take the astronaut tests. She excelled, so the doctor who supervised the selection of NASA's Mercury astronauts recruited... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1568582757
• ISBN13: 9781568582757
• Release Date: July 2003
• Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows
• Length: 356 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.1" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Promised the Moon: The Untold Story of the First Women in the Space Race

Great read! Arrived in excellent condition and quickly

A good canadian view

Well for a canadian to begin digging into american history that might have been forgotten WOW.....You picked a good topic.... And to think a person who washed out stopped this from happening....... Nice work.... Jonathan

Well-written, fascinating story

As a Canadian, for many years I have had the pleasure of following Ms Nolen's International journalism in the Globe and Mail, our country's national newspaper. In that same newspaper, I spotted a glowing review of "Promised the Moon" by Roberta Bondar, and it was then that I purchased the book and learned the little-known story of the Mercury 13.Ms Nolen has certainly done her research. She has tracked down the surviving members of the Mercury 13, and told their story in such a way that even a space "layperson" such as myslef can understand the details. A fascinating, well-written piece of non-fiction by an award-winning journalist. Highly recommended.

The new standard for telling this story.

Full disclosure: I am the daughter of Gene Nora Stumbough Jessen who was one of the FLATs (Fellow Lady Astronaut Trainees) and so I am more than casually interested in this story. Plus I've met the author, so I'm going to be even less professional, and call her Stephanie!Every student of the US-Soviet Space Race should have this book. The FLATs have had their story of thirteen women who passed the 1960's astronaut tests (famously described and pictured in "The Right Stuff") told in several media, but Stephanie's is the most thorough job. Her book is liberally sprinkled through with transcripts, letters, interviews, and other primary sources. She presents all sides of the issues, and is exceptionally fair to those who can no longer speak for themselves, especially Jacqueline Cochrane.Stephanie does an excellent job drawing the reader into the late '50's and early '60's, painting what seems to be an accurate picture of that era. She lets the primary sources speak for themselves and generally comments just enough to keep the narrative going. For example: in my lifetime I have only known John Glenn as a somewhat liberal Democrat senator from Ohio, and part of the Keating Five. Stephanie ably describes how especially he was seen to be nearly a god during the Space Race. We've seen that before in books and movies, but Stephanie's book tells the story from these exceptional women pilots' perspective.In a nutshell: this is a darn interesting story, and Stephanie writes well and had a good editor. An easy, fascinating read.