Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. She is a professor of physics and astronomy and as aunt to her niece, Frances, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA's space shuttle program. Suddenly, Joan burns to go to space.Selected from in the summer of 1980, Joan begins training at Houston's Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond and scientist John Griffin, mission specialist Lydia Danes, warmhearted Donna Fitzgerald, and Vanessa Ford, the mysterious aeronautical engineer who can fix any engine and fly any plane.As they prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a love she never imagined. In this new light, Joan begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her place in the observable universe.Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, it all changes in an instant.