"Blast off into a galaxy full of fun with this fact-tastic nonfiction Level 3 Ready-to-Read, part of a series about the history of fun stuff!"--

The whole world followed the countdown to sending the first men to the moon. This is the story of the people who made it happen, both in the rockets and behind the scenes.

Before John Glenn orbited the Earth or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of professionals worked as "Human Computers," calculating the flight paths that would enable these historic achievements. Among these were a coterie of bright, talented African-American women. Segregated from their white counterparts by Jim Crow laws, these "colored computers," as they were known, used slide rules, adding machines, and pencil and paper to support America's...

"Find out all about NASA in this out-of-this-world addition to the What Was? series. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, better known as NASA, began in 1958. With its creation, the United States hoped to ensure it won the space race against the Soviet Union. Author Sarah Fabiny describes the origins of NASA, the launching of the Apollo program that landed the first human on the moon, and the many missions and discoveries that have taken...

Explores the previously uncelebrated but pivotal contributions of NASA's African American women mathematicians to America's space program, describing how Jim Crow laws segregated them despite their groundbreaking successes.