The New Guys: The Historic Class of Astronauts That Broke Barriers and Changed the Face of Space Travel

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.)