Interesting history, but get the print version

This is an interesting look into a little-known (though just about to be Hollywood blockbuster) story of female 'computers' working at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL). The computers, as they were known, were people who computed the calculations needed for the complex engineering and scientific space missions undertaken by the US Government and later NASA. Starting with rocket design and moving to trajectories, interplanetary communications, orbits, scientific studies of atmospheres, and exploring other planets, these women were the backbone of the success (and fixers of the failures) of those early years of space exploration. More importantly, they were also the first women brought into the space program, the trailblazers for future generations of scientists, engineers and computer programmers who work for NASA today (and the JPL is still the highest employer of women within NASA today). This is their story, laid out by decade, running through a laundry list of space missions and milestones from pre-Sputnik to the Mars rovers.

The book is detailed and interesting, going through both the personal and professional lives of the women involved. Broken into decades, it flows naturally through the space race and into the era of scientific exploration. The downside is that there are just a few too many characters and missions, making it hard to keep track of who is who and who is working on what. This is not helped in the early chapters by the proliferation of nicknames, some giving the ladies men's names, some giving the men ladies' names. The focus on the homelife in the early years also felt like a drag. I wanted to learn about the science they were doing, not the struggles of raising children or wondering if their husbands would like their new dresses. I know, this is the classic story of the struggles of women in second wave feminism and pushing on a closed door (let alone a glass ceiling), but the book was marketed a bit more like a focus on their work not their home lives. Can't have one without the other I suppose, but I was more engaged with the book when the focus was on the science and innovations, and when later in the book the focus became less on the personal than the professional.

In terms of an audio book, the narration wasn't my favourite. The narrator was slow, had a few mis-pronunciations, and seemed to be more excited about the relationships than the science. It could have just been the way the old-time nicknames and 1950's domestic stories come across, but it sounded like an out of date 1950s sitcom.

Overall I'd recommend it to someone interested in the space program or in the role of women in early science institutions. But perhaps get the paperback, not the audio book.

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