Women in space.

Almost Astronauts - Tanya Lee Stone

It wasn't until the launch of Space Shuttle Challenger in June 1983 that America let a woman go into space. (The Soviet Union launched Valentina Tereshkova in to space in 1963.) However way back at the start of the Mercury space program in 1958 there were 13 women willing to undertake the training in order to fly in space.

This book honours all the women of the American space program, but concentrates on the lives of the 'Mercury 13' who were perhaps not treated as well as they should have been. The stories told here prove that they were just as much the Right Stuff as their male counterparts and it was just society that kept them grounded.

Since their time women have gone on to pilot and command the Space Shuttle and also to command the International Space Station. If it wasn't for trail blazers like the 13 who knows if this would be the case?

Again this book was originally written for children but the eye witness accounts and the photographs make this just as interesting for adults to read.