Last year, in observance of the anniversary of Apollo 11’s successful lunar landing on July 20, 1969, I planned for a week of space-exploration reading. I may have gotten a little carried away and kept reading astronaut books until the mood finally passed in late August, but it’s time to go to space camp once again! I’ve got 2-3 titles planned, with one almost read already. I’ve updated last year’s list with the 2021 reading, and they’re arranged not in the order read, but in the period they cover, roughly. The huge omission is nothing for Skylab, which I hope to remedy in the future: Forever Young would be the ideal book, as Young has the distinction of serving as an astronaut on an Apollo mission, on Skylab, and in the Shuttle fleet. Bolded titles are particular favorites, and A Man on the Moon is the boldest of the bold. I can’t recommend it highly enough. For new readers, “Space Camp” takes its name from a summer program for kids hosted by the Marshall Space Center in Huntsville, Alabama. If you want to do your own space camp, check out this list on goodreads!

PREVIOUS SPACE CAMP READING

Rise of the Rocket Girls, Nathalia Holt (Civilian Support – Mercury onwards)
We Could Not Fail: The First African-Americans in the Space Program, Richard Paul and Steven Moss (Civilian/Support – Mercury onwards)
Deke! US Manned Space Flight from Mercury to the Shuttle, Deke Slayton (Mercury-Apollo and onwards)
Soviets in Space: The People of the USSR and the Race to the Moon, Colin Turbett (Sputnik forward)
Two Sides of the Moon, Alexei Leonov and David Scott (Mercury/Sputnik – forward)
Men from Earth, Buzz Aldrin and Malcolm McConnell. (Mercury through to the early Shuttle years.)
A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts, Andrew Chaikin. THE Apollo history. (Gemini-Apollo)
Moon Shot: The Inside Story, Alan Shephard and Deke Slayton (Mercury – Apollo)
Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, Jim Lovell (Apollo)
Into the Black: The Extraordinary First Flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia, Rowland White (Shuttle)
Through the Glass Ceiling to the Stars, Eileen Collins (Shuttle-ISS)
The Ordinary Spaceman, Clayton Anderson (Shuttle-ISS years)
Sky Walking: An Astronaut’s Memoir, Tom Jones. (Shuttle-ISS years)
Riding Rockets, Mike Mullane (Shuttle-ISS)
Spaceman: An Astronaut’s Unlikely Journey, Mike Massimino (ISS Years)
Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery, Scott Kelly (ISS)
Back to Earth: What Life in Space Taught Me About Our Home Planet, Nicola Stott (ISS)