Fighting for Space by Amy Shira Teitel

Fighting for Space by Amy Shira Teitel

Spaceflight historian Amy Shira Teitel tells the riveting story of the female pilots who each dreamed of being the first American woman in space.



When the space age dawned in the late 1950s, Jackie Cochran held more propeller and jet flying records than any pilot of the twentieth century--man or woman. She had led the Women's Auxiliary Service Pilots during the Second World War, was the first woman to break the sound barrier, ran her own luxury cosmetics company, and counted multiple presidents among her personal friends. She was more qualified than any woman in the world to make the leap from atmosphere to orbit. Yet it was Jerrie Cobb, twenty-five years Jackie's junior and a record-holding pilot in her own right, who finagled her way into taking the same medical tests as the Mercury astronauts. The prospect of flying in space quickly became her obsession.



While the American and international media spun the shocking story of a "woman astronaut" program, Jackie and Jerrie struggled to gain control of the narrative, each hoping to turn the rumored program into their own ideal reality--an issue that ultimately went all the way to Congress.



This dual biography of audacious trailblazers Jackie Cochran and Jerrie Cobb presents these fascinating and fearless women in all their glory and grit, using their stories as guides through the shifting social, political, and technical landscape of the time.

Teitel, Amy Shira: - Amy Shira Teitel is a lifelong space-history nerd who has turned her schoolgirl fascination with the Apollo missions into a career researching the minutiae of spaceflight's history. Amy started writing for the public with her blog, Vintage Space. She has also written for a number of other online and print publications including Discovery News Space, Al-Jazeera, The Guardian and Universe Today. She runs a thriving YouTube channel (also called Vintage Space), has appeared on the Discovery channel, the Military channel, SyFy, and the Science channel, and she is a host on DNews, Discovery Channel's online daily science news show. Amy is also an embedded journalist on the New Horizons team, bringing the excitement of humanity's first mission to Pluto to the space-loving public.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781538716045
ISBN 10	1538716046
Title	Fighting for Space
Author	Amy Shira Teitel
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Grand Central Publishing
Year published	2020-02-18
Number of pages	448
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.