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

Meredith Bagby
William Morrow, 2023, 511 pages

This story of NASA’s Astronaut Class 8 is an unprecedented look at extraordinary explorers who broke barriers and blasted through glass ceilings. Egos clashed, ambitions flared, and romances bloomed as the New Guys competed with one another and navigated the cutthroat internal politics at NASA for a chance to rocket to the stars. The New Guys arrived at the dawn of a new era of space flight. Teardrop-shaped space capsules from Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo gave way to the space shuttle, a revolutionary space plane capable of launching like a rocket, hauling cargo like a truck, and landing back on Earth like an airliner. They mastered this new machine from its dangerous first test flights to its greatest achievements: launching hundreds of satellites, building the International Space Station, and deploying the Hubble Space Telescope.

The Artemis Lunar Program: Returning People to the Moon

Manfred von Ehrenfried
Springer, 2020, 307 pages

This book describes the future of the Artemis Lunar Program from the years 2017 to about 2030. All of the elements of the proposed program are described from the perspective of NASA, the commercial space industry, and our International partners. The book also describes the many proposed vehicles, habitats, landers, payloads, and experiments. The book tells the story of the buildup of a very small space station in a strange new lunar orbit and the descent of payloads and humans, including the first woman and the first person of color, to the lunar surface with the intent to evolve a sustained presence over time.

The Case for Space: How the Revolution in Spaceflight Opens Up a Future of Limitless Possibility

Robert Zubrin
Prometheus Books, 2019, 395 pages

Noted space expert Robert Zubrin explains the current revolution in spaceflight, where it will lead, and why we need it. Zubrin shows how projects that sound like science fiction can actually become reality. In this book he makes a compelling case for why we need to explore space — to increase our knowledge of the universe, to make unforeseen discoveries on new frontiers, to harness the natural resources of other planets, to safeguard Earth from stray asteroids, and to ensure the future of humanity by expanding beyond its home base.

Heroes of the Space Age: Incredible Stories of the Famous and Forgotten Men and Women Who Took Humanity to the Stars

Rod Pyle
Prometheus Books, 2019, 299 pages

A NASA insider tells the exciting story of the people, both well-known and unrecognized, who were responsible for so many daring space missions. Award-winning science writer Rod Pyle profiles the remarkable pilots, scientists, and engineers whose work was instrumental in space missions to every corner of our solar system and beyond.

Origins of 21st Century Space Travel: A History of NASA’s Decadal Planning Team and the Vision for Space Exploration, 1994–2004

Glen R. Asner and Stephen J. Garber
NASA Office of Communications, History Division, 2019, 250 pages

As early as April 1999, NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin had established the Decadal Planning Team (DPT) to provide a forum for future NASA leaders to begin considering goals more ambitious than sending humans on missions to near-Earth destinations and robotic spacecraft to far-off destinations, with no relation between the two. This book provides a detailed historical account of the ideas, debates, and decisions that opened the way for a new generation of spaceflight at the start of the 21st century.

Mission Moon 3-D: Reliving the Great Space Race

David J. Eicher and Brian May
MIT Press, 2018, 191 pages

This book celebrates not only the years since the first human steps on the Moon, but the achievements of all the Soviet and American heroes who risked and sometimes lost their lives in the race to the Moon. The book features spectacular 3-D images carefully constructed by Brian May from the astronauts’ own photographs, and the book includes a free viewer designed by May.

The Penguin Book of Outer Space Exploration: NASA and the Incredible Story of Human Spaceflight

John Logsdon, editor
Penguin Books, 2018, 374 pages

Renowned space historian John Logsdon traces the greatest moments in human spaceflight by weaving together essential, fascinating documents from NASA’s history with his expert narrative guidance. Beginning with rocket genius Wernher von Braun’s vision for voyaging to Mars, and closing with Elon Musk’s contemporary plan to get there, this volume traces major events like the founding of NASA, the first American astronauts in space, the Apollo Moon landings, the Challenger disaster, the daring Hubble Telescope repairs, and more.

How to Live in Space: Everything you Need to Know for the Not-So-Distant Future

Colin Stuart
Smithsonian Books, 2018, 192 pages

This book is an amusing and informative illustrated guide to life beyond our own planet that covers everything from training for and living in space to the future of space travel and tourism. Grounded in space science, planetary biology, and rocket science, this accessible guide propels readers through takeoff, life in orbit, terraforming, and the long-term effects of space on the human body.

The Smithsonian History of Space Exploration: From the Ancient World to the Extraterrestrial Future

Roger D. Launius
Smithsonian Books, 2018, 400 pages

This book provides an in-depth, fully illustrated history of global space discovery and exploration from ancient times to the modern era. Space historian Roger D. Launius examines the thousands of years that humans have endeavored to understand the universe, including the pioneering work undertaken by the ancients of Greece, Rome, and China; the great astronomical discoveries of Renaissance thinkers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler; and the technological and mechanical breakthroughs that have enabled the human race to explore far beyond our own planet in recent decades.

Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, From Missiles to the Moon to Mars

Nathalia Holt
Little, Brown and Company, 2016, 338 pages

In the 1940s and 1950s, when the Jet Propulsion Laboratory needed quick-thinking mathematicians to calculate velocities and plot trajectories, they recruited an elite group of young women who, with only pencil, paper, and mathematical prowess, transformed rocket design, helped bring about the first American satellites, and made the exploration of the solar system possible. For the first time, Rise of the Rocket Girls tells the stories of these women — known as “human computers” — who broke the boundaries of both gender and science. Based on extensive research and interviews with all the living members of the team, this book offers a unique perspective on the role of women in science: both where we’ve been, and the far reaches of space to which we’re heading.

Fallen Astronauts: Heroes Who Died Reaching for the Moon, Revised Edition

Colin Burgess and Kate Doolan
University of Nebraska Press, 2016, 386 pages

Many people are aware of the first manned Apollo mission, in which Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee lost their lives in a fire during a ground test, but few know of five other fallen astronauts whose stories this book tells as well. Their stories return us to a stirring time in the history of our nation and remind us of the cost of fulfilling our dreams. This revised edition includes expanded and revised biographies and additional photographs.

Human Space Exploration: Early Assessments of NASA’s Next Steps

Darrel Gibbs, editor
Nova Science Publishers, 2015, 84 pages

This book examines the scope of NASA’s preliminary cost estimates for the Space Launch System and Orion capsule that will continue human space exploration beyond low-Earth Orbit.

Humans Orbiting Mars, A Critical Step Toward the Red Planet: A Workshop

Prepared by Scott Hubbard, John Logsdon, Casey Dreier, and Jason Callahan
The Planetary Society, 2015, 45 pages

In 2014, the National Academies released a report that concluded that NASA’s current plans for getting humans to Mars could not happen earlier than 2046 without a massive (and unlikely) increase to the human spaceflight program’s budget. The Planetary Society held a workshop in 2015 to explore a proof-of-concept plan which could get humans near Mars over a decade sooner. An orbit-first concept would send astronauts near the Moon throughout the 2020s, to Mars orbit and Phobos in 2033, and finally to the surface of Mars by 2039 to begin an ongoing program of exploration. Humans Orbiting Mars is the report of that workshop.

Survival and Sacrifice in Mars Exploration: What We Know from Polar Expeditions

Erik Seedhouse
Springer, 2015, 163 pages

The experience gained in polar exploration more than 100 years ago provides space mission crews and planners with a framework to deal with contingencies, and that idea forms the core of this book. Why the parallels between polar and space exploration? Polar exploration offers a better analogy for a Mars mission today than those invoked by the space community. Mars-bound astronauts will be close in their roles to polar explorers, and as much as space has been described as a new frontier, Mars bears greater similarity to the polar regions. So much can be learned from those who ventured there.

Rockets and Revolution: A Cultural History of Early Spaceflight

Michael G. Smith
University of Nebraska Press, 2014, 431 pages

This book offers a multifaceted study of the race toward space in the first half of the twentieth century, examining how the Russian, European, and American pioneers competed against one another in the early years to acquire the fundamentals of rocket science, engineer simple rockets, and ultimately prepare the path for human spaceflight.