It’s 1952, and a meteorite has just impacted in the Chesapeake Bay, instantly obliterating much of the east coast, including Washington, DC (and all the important stuff therein). Enter Elma York, a former WASP pilot and current computer for the space program. Elma is a math whiz, and shortly works out that the cataclysm is actually an extinction-level event. As go the dinosaurs, so are about to go the people. Humanity’s response to the impending disaster is to look towards the stars: if Earth will become uninhabitable, humanity will need to colonize space. And the first step is the moon.
As the space program begins to ramp up, Elma and a group of other women pilots push for women to be included – after all, you can’t have a viable colony with just men! This push provides the main _____ of the story. Elma, who is a charmingly three-dimensional character with plenty of flaws, finds herself the face of the “Lady Astronauts,” while dealing with the trauma of losing family, and confronting the sexism of the time. I also appreciated that Kowal highlighted the embedded racism of the time, as well, while resisting any temptation to make Elma a Model White Lady. (Elma, like many progressive white women, is not actively racist. But nor does she actively try to expand her perspective and consider the experiences of people who don’t look like her until challenged to do so.)
I also really appreciated the beats of “real” history that were included. (I had no idea that Milltown was a real thing until an episode of “You Must Remember This” referenced it as well.) It made everything feel a little more plausible, and a little more uncomfortable. An interesting companion piece to For All Mankind, which I started watching before reading The Calculating Stars. Definitely going to be picking up the rest of the series!