Tom Wolfe published it in 1979, and it stands as a landmark of new journalism. Today, the line between classical and new journalism has blurred; both styles aim to observe reality with a distance, often infused with irony and a wild, honest cadence. The collection includes a review titled “Things That Should Have Happened.” Wolfe reconstructs scenes from interviews and real-life events spanning six years. He inserts himself into the narrative, blending fact with flexible fiction. The rhythm of the prose shifts, capturing the hush and roar of North America’s early space ambitions. In particular, it delves into how President Eisenhower drew a pool of test pilots into spaceflight, a step that earned them the nickname given to the first astronauts.
Too many funerals
One notable piece, Things You Must Have, opens with a fascination on the funerals that a young couple—a test pilot and his wife—attend month after month. The pilots’ work lived up to its name: tests that pushed limits. They chased the edge of sound, reaching ever farther from Earth. Some flights ended in paralysis of the cockpit, others in fire and blast. As a result, those young men died, friends filled the pews, and the widows faced a collective fear. The noise of the test sites surrounded lonely homes close to the runway, shaping fear into an almost tangible atmosphere.
Wolfe, always audacious and unafraid to mock power, used this collection of failed experiments to critique the system. The book’s core motto—Our work tends to fail—surrounded the early American push into space. It suggested that the era, though bold, carried contradictions and unforeseen costs. The story’s energy led to a larger conversation about national ambition and the human cost of progress. In 1983, a film adaptation by Philip Kaufman drew from the book, translating its audacity to the silver screen. The film, with its mix of absurdity and historical heft, remains a vivid window into a unfinished, evolving saga.
Extreme machismo
Martha Ackmann is a journalist who has spent decades exploring space history. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, she has led the Emily Dickinson International Society and served as its president, shaping scholarship around the poet’s life and work. For nearly two decades, Ackmann lectured on Dickinson at the poet’s home in Amherst, Massachusetts, sharing a deep engagement with American letters. Her recent book dives into a less celebrated chapter of aviation and space exploration: the women who trained to join the space program just as their male peers were breaking barriers. The book, originally published twenty years prior, returned to print because the story of women who trained for space—often overlooked—deserves a fuller spotlight.
The work highlights the 1960s and 1970s era when the American space program trained thirteen women to become pilots with the same aspirations as the male astronauts. Officially, Valentina Tereshkova’s 1963 ascent marked the first woman in space, a milestone in a different superpower’s program. Ackmann’s narrative is careful not to ignore this historical fact, yet it centers the U.S. experience, where many argued that women were educated just as men to pursue the final frontier. One prominent figure was Jerrie Cobb, a pioneering pilot who demonstrated remarkable skill and grit. She, like her male counterparts, faced the challenge of testing boundaries while confronting a culture that sometimes doubted a woman’s capability to fly into space. The text does not shy away from sharp critique, noting how machismo could distort both opportunity and memory.
Ackmann’s book can be read as a counterweight to Wolfe’s narrative, offering a complementary perspective that exposes the gendered blind spots of the era. The juxtaposition reveals how the myth of fearless masculinity often overshadowed the quiet, stubborn courage of women who trained behind the scenes. The account is rich with detail—at times exhilarating, at times unsettling—creating a portrait of a society negotiating risk, power, and equality. Wolfe’s dramatic storytelling stands alongside Ackmann’s meticulous scholarship, presenting a fuller, more nuanced chapter in the history of space exploration. Taken together, the works illuminate both the grandeur of ambition and the stubborn obstacles that linger in the margins of triumph.