Ever since 2021 I’ve set aside a week in July to celebrate human spaceflight, inspired by the lunar landing on July 20, 1969. I just realized it’s the 17th and my TBR pile has nothing spacey in it, so I’m just going to post a list of all the human spaceflight books I’ve covered to date, including those from last year’s Space Camp. I still might surprise myself by finding something before the month is out! These are in rough chronological order by subject covered.
PREVIOUS SPACE CAMP READS
Breaking the Chains of Gravity: Spaceflight Before NASA, Amy Shira Teitel
Rise of the Rocket Girls, Nathalia Holt (Civilian Support – Mercury onwards)
Fighting for Space: Two Pilots and their Battle for Female Space Flight, Amy Shira Teitel
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)
Carrying the Fire, Mike Collins. The best singular astronaut memoir there is.
Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, Jim Lovell (Apollo)
Forever Young, John Young. A memoir of over 40 years of astronauting, from Apollo to the pioneering Shuttle mission.
We Have Capture, Tom Stafford. Gemini to Apollo-Soyuz.
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)
Handprints on Hubble, Dr. Kathryn Sullivan (Shuttle)
Off the Planet: Surviving Five Perilous Months Aboard Mir, Jerry Lineger
The Six: The Untold Story of America’s First Female Astronauts, Loren Grush
The Burning Blue: the Untold Story of Christine McAuliffe and the Challenger Disaster, Kevin Cook (Shuttle)
Riding Rockets, Mike Mullane (Shuttle-ISS)
Spaceman: An Astronaut’s Unlikely Journey, Mike Massimino (ISS Years)
Bringing Columbia Home: The Untold Story of a Lost Shuttle and her Crew, Michael Leinbach & Johnathan Ward (Shuttle-ISS)
Out of Orbit, Chris Jones. Life aboard the ISS in the year following Columbia‘s death.
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)
Reading Freely 
I miss reading about space stuff…. I need to schedule something…. Anything….. [muses]
I just found a novel that’s space-adjacent. It’s..um, interesting. A “romcom” that’s very steamy. The author — a woman — writes the way that women scold men for writing…
[rotflmao]
wow, this is quite an impressive list!
I’m a liiiiitle obsessed. XD
What a great idea! You’ve cultivated quite the list as well!
Now that is a buffet of space books! I’ll have to use this as a reference if I’m ever in a space non-fic mood!
Wow you’ve read a lot of space books. I haven’t read any 🙈 although I am curious about the ones featuring female astronauts, you never hear much about them.
Sally Ride could had a HUGE profile, but she avoided the spotlight for personal reasons. I imagine Judy Resnik would have been very outspoken, but unfortunately she died in the Challenger explosion.
I’m glad she managed to avoid it then, if that’s what she wanted. I can certainly understand wanting to stay out of that limelight. That’s awful. I’ll have to look into some of these books to learn more.