astronauts

One of my personal reading goals I set when Covid-19 first started turning things upside down was to read more of the books on my own personal shelves, things I'd bought but not read yet. I wasn't counting on my reading mojo plummeting, and truthfully, as far as timing went, I might have chosen a bit more wisely than to read a book that begins with a cataclysmic event that will likely be a human extinction event in time. So while I was fairly certain I would ultimately enjoy Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Calculating Stars, first book in her Lady Astronaut series, it took a bit for me to fully

This is a hands-down fabulous book! It’s an adventure. In space. On Mars. What more do you need? But on top of that it’s witty and science-y with a hint of impending doom.

Mark Watney, astronaut-botanist, gets left behind by his crew and must find a way to survive on this uninhabitable planet, alone, until rescue is made possible. The Martian is written in journal form from Watney's perspective. He details all the ways he fixes and rigs the Hub (his home far away from home), finds ways to grow eatable food, and tries to communicate with NASA. But the writing isn't all science jargon, Watney

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”  Most people know that these words were said by Neil Armstrong, the first human to set foot on the moon. Many books have been written and movies made about the early years of space travel and the first astronauts. Except for old articles in LIFE magazine, much less has been written about the wives of those astronauts.  Lily Koppel has addressed this lack of information in her book The Astronaut Wives Club. The book describes how the wives were expected to be the “perfect American wife.” Their own hopes, dreams and goals were to be