WOMEN ON A MISSION

Salutes to 12 women who made significant contributions to the Apollo program.

Black “human computer” Katherine Johnson is likely to be the only name on this roster familiar even to well-read young students of the early space program. But after interviewing surviving subjects or their families and delving into oral histories and published accounts, Slade has provided readers with 11 more women who were active members of Team Apollo, including thermochemist and rocket fuel expert Reatha Clark King; aerospace engineer Mary Golda Ross, co-author of NASA’s planetary flight handbook and member of the Cherokee Nation; and Yvonne Young Clark, who earned a degree from Howard University in mechanical engineering and went on to design the “rock box” astronauts used to collect lunar samples. Along with capsule accounts of their lives and specific achievements, the entries include a variety of photos, peppy direct quotes, and Magnell’s painted views of the subjects at work in labs, offices, and control rooms. The author concludes with a shoutout to Sally Ride and the rest of the first class of women astronauts. As she notes, these lesser-known figures, too, “are heroes whose stories need to be told!”

Totally justified, if tardy, tributes to women who also had the “right stuff” to take us to the moon.