Emily Carney is a former nuclear technician for the U.S. Navy and an accomplished space journalist. She is the manager of public engagement and social media for the Space 3.0 Foundation, founder of the popular spaceflight group Space Hipsters, and cohost of the Space and Things podcast. Bruce McCandless III is a novelist, an attorney, and the son of a shuttle astronaut. He is the author of Wonders All Around: The Incredible True Story of Astronaut Bruce McCandless II and the First Untethered Flight in Space.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
A Few Dates to Remember
NASA’s Crewed Spaceflights (So Far)
1. First Principles
2. The Wizard of Worcester
3. Rocketry and Death
4. The SS Major and the Suicide Squad
The All-Time Greatest Space Exploration Playlist
5. A Starting Gun Called Sputnik
6. Shadows in the Sky
7. Project Mercury
Eleven Boffo Space Books to Launch at Your Brain
8. Gemini’s Forgotten Flights
9. The Rise and Fall of the American Astronaut
The Best Space Stuff You Can Watch
10. Apollo and the First Man on the Moon
11. Skylab and the Renaissance of American Science
NASA’s Eleven Coolest Astronauts
12. Probes, Rovers, and the Golden Record
13. The Butterfly and the Bullet
NASA’s Eleven Greatest Missions
14. Sleeping with the Russians
15. False Starts, Missteps, and the Promise of Artemis
America’s Eleven Biggest Space Losses
16. The New Space Race
17. The Commercialization of Space
Eleven Everyday Benefits of the American Space Program
18. Curse You, Gene Roddenberry!
The Eleven Most Persistent Rumors, Riddles, and Conspiracy Theories about the American Space Program
19. Looking Outward
Eleven Fearless Space Predictions
20. Why It’s Worth It
Sources