Are you crazy for space?

Welcome back to Planetary Radio Book Club edition.

I'm Matt Kaplan, Senior Communications Advisor at the Planetary Society,

and former host of Planetary Radio. Members of the Society get to participate in our conversations

with authors of the wonderful books we select each month. Our August selection took us deep into the popular culture that has surrounded spaceflight

and space exploration for nearly a century.

I'll introduce you to space craze writer Dr. Margaret Whitecamp in a moment, but I first want

to invite you to also watch the video of my interview with Margaret

at planetary.org slash live. That's where you can see the wonderful artifacts. You'll hear us

sing the praises of over the next few minutes, but I think you'll enjoy this fascinating,

revealing conversation regardless.

Let me tell you a little bit about our guest.

That's Margaret Whitecamp, the author of Space Cray's Amhertyling Fascination, with Real and Imagine Space Flight.

I highly recommend it.

It is a great cultural review of why we, especially Americans in our culture,

have been crazy for space, both real and imagined for so long. The book was awarded the

2024 Gardner Lassar Aerospace History Literature Award from the AIAA, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

In 2004, she published Right Stuff, Wrong Sex, America's First Women in Space.

And it was awarded a prestigious honor by the American Astronautical Society.

She also worked with her colleague,

our past book club guest, Matt Schindel, on the second edition of Spaceships, an illustrated history

of the real and imagined. She is speaking to us from her home, either in or near Washington,

...