For a novel on the first women astronauts, Taylor Jenkins Reid studied old NASA PDFs
09:19 Share

Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. I once interviewed a big-time novelist who shall not be named, and I asked them, oh, how did you research this aspect of the book or that section? And they went, I didn't. I made it up. I write fiction. All right, on the one hand, I understand the points, but on the other, it made me respect even more the authors who do try and get things right.

Like Taylor Jenkins Reid, her new novel, Atmosphere, is about the first women astronauts. And for the book, she went to the Johnson Space Center and got on a decommissioned space shuttle. But she also did the less romantic parts of research, which just involved reading tons and tons of documents. She talked to NPR's Debbie Elliott about what she learned specifically about female astronauts after the break.

This message comes from Midi Health. Women in midlife face a healthcare desert, but Midi is here to fill the gap, offering expert care for perimenopause and menopause covered by insurance. Hot flashes, insomnia, brain fog, weight gain, and moodiness don't have to be accepted as just another part of aging. Midi clinicians understand how these symptoms can connect to menopause and prescribe a wide range of solutions. Book your visit today at joinmidi.com. That's joinmidi.com.

Support for NPR and the following message come from Indeed. You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. Claim your $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash NPR. Terms and conditions apply.

The new novel, Atmosphere, starts in 1984 at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Joan Goodwin is an astronaut, but her job this day is with mission control. She's tasked with being the only person who speaks directly to the crew aboard this space shuttle navigator. Joan is a calm person, which is good, given the crisis that quickly unfolds.

We have a plan for this. I love that line. Thank you. I think I stole it from NASA. Yeah.

So all compliments go to NASA on that one. That's author Taylor Jenkins-Reed. She didn't just write a gripping story about a space accident. Atmosphere covers the early days of the shuttle program and the challenges faced by the first women astronauts.

That includes proving themselves. It also includes self-discovery. High-achieving astronomer Joan Goodwin never thought she'd ever fall in love. When she does, with fellow astronaut Vanessa Ford, the two have to keep their relationship quiet. The stakes get especially high during the crisis 250 miles above the Earth, when Vanessa is the only astronaut aboard the Navigator who can communicate with mission control.

They are deploying a satellite when something goes wrong. There are two explosive cords that detonate, and one of them detonates incorrectly and sends shrapnel into the airlock and also somewhere into the cabin. The cabin pressure begins to drop rapidly, which can be very fatal very quickly.

Introduce us to Joan Goodwin. Who is she and what is her life like before she joins NASA? Yeah. So Joan Goodwin is an astronomer. She's been in love with the stars since she was a child. And when she hears that women are being accepted into the astronaut corps, she becomes very eager to apply. She actually applies twice before she gets in.

And it's only once she gets to the astronaut corps and she is surrounded by this new group of people that she starts to realize she may not understand herself as much as she thought she did. At one point, Joan says to one of her new colleagues, I've always felt when I look at the stars, I'm reminded that I'm never alone. What does she find at NASA?

She finds like-minded people. She finds people who understand her in a way that no one else really has before. They're all attempting to do something really exceptional. They're all attempting to leave the atmosphere. And the pull to do that is something that has been in her for a long time but has always been hard to describe. And so when she meets a group of people who also feel that pull...

she feels a kinship that she's never felt before. And she feels that most specifically with Vanessa Ford. Vanessa seems to be able to articulate her

why she wants to go up there in a way that really captivates Joan. So the novel takes place, this is the early 1980s. It's toggling back and forth between the space disaster, right? And the years leading up to it as Joan and Vanessa and others are training. They are the second ever astronaut cohort with women in it. What was NASA like for them back then?

You know, I read a lot of books about the space shuttle program. And one of the things that I kept seeing was how NASA, but also the press, had a lot of adjusting to do in allowing women into the astronaut corps. It's not just that a lot of the men had to learn how to work with women. It was also things as simple as the spacesuits were made for a male body, right?

The parachutes during water survival training, the harnesses, all of them are made for a male body. So there were a lot of things that the first few rounds of women entering the astronaut corps had to sort of raise their hand and say, hey,

Here's where we need things to change. And I'm always curious about that moment for anyone, but for women in general, how do they handle that moment? How do they make the world change in these small incremental ways? It was part of the appeal of writing about NASA for me. I got really curious what it was like to be one of those women in group eight or group nine.

Now, how did you research all of this? Did you actually go talk to people at NASA in those early days? You know, the first thing I did was I went to the Johnson Space Center. We actually went into a decommissioned space shuttle, which was really incredible. I watched all the great space movies. I watched Gravity and Apollo 13 and The Right Stuff and all that.

But the fact is the hardest part of this book was getting the mechanics of the space shuttle right and understanding the specifics of mission control. And for that, I needed help. And I'm very fortunate to be able to say that Paul Dye, who is the longest serving flight director at NASA, who served during the space shuttle program and has since retired, he was very generous with his time.

and really helped to make this book what it is. That explains how you knew exactly how many latches there were on every hatch. Yeah, and also I will say one of the things that I was surprised to find is that because NASA is a government organization...

There is a lot of old PDFs you can find on the internet. So I have papers about the payload bay doors that were written in the 1970s. And, you know, when a sentence just got too convoluted for me to understand without an engineering degree, I called Paul Dye. Joan is a scientist, but she's also at times sharing her sense of faith.

I'm wondering if we can get you to read some of that section of the book. It's this moment where she and Vanessa are talking about religious belief. And Joan says the pursuit of a unifying theory to explain the universe is science, but it's also the pursuit of God. This is Joan speaking to Vanessa.

I would go so far as to say that as human beings, we are less of a who and more of a when. We are a moment in time when all of our cells have come together in this body.

But our atoms were many things before, and they will be many things after. The air I'm breathing is the same air your ancestors breathed. Even what is in my body right now, the cells, the air, the bacteria, it's not only mine. It's a point of connection with every other living thing made up of the same kinds of particles ruled by the same physical laws. Where does this come from? Is this your belief as well?

I'm writing as Joan, but I would be lying if I didn't admit that a lot of Joan has rubbed off on me. When I decided to write about space, I didn't know that I would feel like that necessitated writing about spirituality.

But the two feel very linked to me. And I felt like Joan would be prompted in her life to have thought about these things. And I believed she would think of them this way. I'm not putting forth any new ideas, but this is who I believe Joan is. And it's one of my favorite things about her. And it is certainly something that I've taken with me myself.

Taylor Jenkins Reid, her new novel is Atmosphere. Thank you so much for being on the program. Oh, thank you so much for having me. This message comes from Warby Parker. Prescription eyewear that's expertly crafted and unexpectedly affordable. Glasses designed in-house from premium materials starting at just $95, including prescription lenses. Stop by a Warby Parker store near you.

This message comes from Charles Schwab. When it comes to managing your wealth, Schwab gives you more choices, like full-service wealth management and advice when you need it. You can also invest on your own and trade on Thinkorswim. Visit Schwab.com to learn more.

This message comes from Travel Nevada. Pop quiz, where can you find 60 million acres to discover? The Silver State, a place like no other. The desert has a way with words. Ghost towns, saloons, and burrows and herds. No bluffs or limericks, just wide open, wild, and terrific. It's time to get a little out there, to the heart of Nevada, to be more specific. Plan your trip at www.travelnevada.com.