Joan Goodwin, a thoughtful and reserved professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University, has always been captivated by the stars. Content in her quiet academic life and her role as a devoted aunt, Joan’s world shifts when she sees an ad calling for the first women scientists to join NASA’s Space Shuttle program. Compelled by a long-held dream, she applies—and is chosen from thousands in the summer of 1980—launching her into an intense new chapter as a trainee astronaut at Houston’s Johnson Space Center. There, Joan joins a remarkable group of candidates, including Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond, easygoing scientist John Griffin, guarded but brilliant Lydia Danes, kind-hearted Donna Fitzgerald, and the enigmatic engineer Vanessa Ford. As they train, Joan forms unexpected bonds, discovers a new passion, and finds a love that changes her understanding of herself and her place in the universe. But when disaster strikes during mission STS-LR9 in December 1984, Joan’s journey takes a sudden and profound turn.
