Women Astronauts

Andi Futura, her older brother and their parents are about to become the first family in space… and she’s sharing everything she learns while living aboard a space station with YOU! Discover what life in space is really like in this fascinating listen authored by real-life astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti.

Who said women can’t go to space? Who said African American women can’t? Mae Jamison challenged society when she decided to become an astronaut. Learn about her inspiring story through this amazing book for third graders. Go ahead and grab a copy for your child to listen to today. 

The Earth is coming to the boiling point as the climate disaster of the meteor strike becomes more and more clear, but the political situation is already overheated. Riots and sabotage plague the space program. The IAC's goal of getting as many people as possible off Earth before it becomes uninhabitable is being threatened.

In this one-of-a-kind memoir, Jack Clemons - a former lead engineer in support of NASA - takes listeners behind the scenes and into the inner workings of the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs during their most exciting years. Discover the people, the events, and the risks involved in one of the most important parts of space missions: bringing the astronauts back home to Earth. Clemons joined Project Apollo in 1968, a young engineer inspired by science fiction and electrified by John F. Kennedy's challenge to the nation to put a man on the moon.

In 2010, Cady Coleman boarded a rocket and blasted off into space for her third NASA mission, a six-month expedition to the International Space Station where she was the only woman on her six-person crew. After years spent overcoming obstacles in competitive and elite environments, including grappling with her own doubts and needing to overturn the expectations of others, Coleman became a success story in a role that wasn’t built with her in mind. In Sharing Space, Cady shares counterintuitive insights integral to her success.

In Handprints on Hubble, retired astronaut Kathryn Sullivan describes her work on the NASA team that made all of this possible. Sullivan, the first American woman to walk in space, recounts how she and other astronauts, engineers, and scientists launched, rescued, repaired, and maintained Hubble, the most productive observatory ever built.

In the 1960s, locked in a heated race to launch the first human into space, the United States selected seven superstar test pilots and former military air fighters to NASA's astronaut class - the Mercury 7. The men endured grueling training and constant media attention for the honor of becoming America's first space heroes. But a group of 13 women - accomplished air racers, test pilots, and flight instructors - were enduring those same astronaut tests in secret, hoping to defy social norms and earn a spot among the stars.

Have you ever heard of the “Mercury 13” women? Did you know that nearly twenty years before the first women were let into NASA’s astronaut program, there were others who tried? What are the requirements for being shot into space, piloting a hunk of metal while carrying the hopes and fears of your nation? Mastery of flying, as well as courage, intelligence, resistance to stress, and fitness – any checklist would certainly include these. But when America created NASA in 1958, there was an unspoken rule in place....

From childhood, Sally Ride was a daring adventurer, and her parents encouraged her to pursue the things she loved. Those things included science and math, fast rides, and the stars in the sky. Eventually her passions and her hard work led her to NASA, where she became the country's first female astronaut, inspiring generations of young people to follow their own dreams of space exploration.

Have you ever dreamed of going to outer space? When Sally Ride was a little girl, she watched on TV as astronaut John Glenn launched into space. Twenty years later, she became the first American woman to go to space. Ride had loved science since she was young. Some of her teachers thought she was wasting her time studying science, but she went on to earn her PhD in astrophysics anyway. When NASA's astronaut training program opened to women, Ride quickly applied. Some people thought women couldn't handle space flight. But Ride worked hard and proved them all wrong.