Promised the Moon The Untold Story of the First Women in the Space Race

A female world-record-setting pilot, Jerrie Cobb was recruited in 1959 to take the astronaut tests. She excelled, so the doctor who supervised the selection of NASA's Mercury astronauts recruited additional female pilots. Twelve performed exceptionally. Stephanie Nolen tracked down eleven of the surviving "Fellow Lady Astronaut Trainees" and learned the story of those early days of the space race and the disappointment when, in 1961, the women were grounded.

Stephanie Nolen is the South African bureau chief for The Globe and Mail. She reports on the developing world and covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She is the coauthor of Shakespeare's Face.