Almost Heaven

by Bettyann Holtzmann Kevles

Book Overview

The stories of the remarkable women who have bravely met two challenges: the risk of space travel and the struggle to succeed in a man's world.Almost Heaven tells the stories of the remarkable women... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0738202096
• ISBN13: 9780738202099
• Release Date: October 2003
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.1" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Buy the paperback, not the hardback.

I've just read the paperback version of this book, with all the comments people posted here about errors in the hardback printed out and by my side (thank you for posting them). It looks like they were all fixed for the paperback edition - great to see when a publishing house takes notice like that. The revised paperback version of this book is an excellent, absorbing read which I highly recommend!

Great Book Getting Weird Reviews

This is a great book, meticulously researched and well written. I don't know why some customers seem to have a vendetta against it, but I found no significant errors of fact, mostly just some typos."Almost Heaven" does a great job of putting the history of women in the space program in contexts of both the Cold War space race and the United States' women's movement. The contrast between the fictional Barbarella and the REAL female astronauts was very funny. I'd recommend this book to anyone who is interested in a comprehensive history of women in space. It's not just the FLATS, not just individual astronauts, not just Americans. I'd love to meet the author one day and ask her what she learned that didn't fit into the book.

An uplifting take on Almost Heaven

ALMOST HEAVEN is a fascinating and enlightening book. It's original, reasonable and fair-minded. I now know a lot more about the cross-cultural contrasts between the American and Soviet women who tried, and sometimes succeeded, in getting into orbit. I am especially impressed with the author's introduction of analogous problems women faced being accepted as explorers in space and in Antarctica, and I am delighted to know what it feels like to live in weightlessness. Just as interesting is the author's view of the murky territory of differences between women and men and what these differences might mean in terms of future expeditions beyond Earth orbit. I wonder if the readers in Houston and Cocoa Beach read the same book I did, the one with the pictures of three women astronauts on the cover beneath a clear blue sky. I checked my copy for some of the "errors" they mentioned, whether trivial ones like typographical errors or more significant ones, such as what happened in the Challenger disaster, and almost none were there. Kevles has the facts right.Two readers have distorted Kevles' presentation of Christa McAuliffe. She explains how Christa, as a student, had protested against the war in Vietnam, and as a teacher and mother welcomed inner-city youngsters into her home during the summers. She writes that Christa was not Concord's best teacher only in that she had never been selected as such while others were, and she says that NASA chose the teacher who communicated the most effectively with everyone.She describes Christa as strikingly warm and able to reach her own students and adults as well. This is not a denigration of McAuliffe nor of her contribution to the space program. Readers should not be misled by these misrepresentations from Houston and Cocoa Beach--both near NASA centers--into denying themselves the pleasure of reading this remarkable account of the lives of brave women who have gone into space, explored it for the rest of us, and told us how, why and what they did, and felt when they were there.

Not accurate?

I disagree with the critic from Vancouver who believes there are factual errors in this book. Perhaps this person reviewed an earlier version, possibly even the galley proofs, before all facts were carefully cross-checked and verified by Bettyann Kevles and her editors. I have spent most of my career in a variety of technical and management positions at NASA and found this book to be not only accurate, but very fair to the people involved. But, more to the point, it's a wonderful read about an important period of recent history when a few very special women finally were able to participate in the most exciting adventure of our time.

Defying gravity and prejudice...

Just imagine what knowledge awaits us, what accomplishments are yet ahead, when peoples around the world finally set aside prejudices and bigotry, and welcome women into every aspect of the world's societies. In her book, "Composing a Life," Mary Catherine Bates aptly equates life with a work in progress, an improvisatory art in which each individual learns to combine familiar and unfamiliar components in response to new situations. This is true for men and women in all walks of life, but it is especially relevant for women in aeronautics. For not only are they taking their well-deserved places next to the brave men who fly combat missions and pilot space shuttles ?they are also redefining the roles of women in a world that still struggles with gender equality. Surely, if there is a heaven, women are equally welcome. (from Marion E. Gold, author of "Top Cops: Profiles of Women in Command")