STAR SAILOR

A veteran of the Space Shuttle program looks back over his long career.

Rather than spin this memoir out in a single chronological thread, the co-authors (who are not related) open with the good stuff—the recruitment of “Charlie B.” into NASA in 1979 as the fourth Black astronaut and his four space flights between 1986 and 1994. They follow with information about his childhood, his early career as a Marine pilot and test pilot, and his later stint as the head of NASA from 2009 to 2017. He brings an unusually personal tone to his experiences in training and in orbit, so that whether describing routine meal prep, the pleasure of viewing lightning and atmospheric auroras from overhead, or the fraught process of deploying the Hubble Space Telescope and other satellites, he will draw readers into each highlight moment. So, too, will the plethora of official color photos and, along the closing timeline, family snapshots. Though he generally isn't one for recording complex emotions (even watching the Challenger explode only days after his own first mission touched down gets a relatively low-key reaction), his deep satisfaction at a host of difficult jobs done well comes through clearly. In at least some of the group scenes, the astronaut is joined by other people of color. As he says, “What a ride!”

An important and inspiring astronaut memoir.