Review: Star Bound

by Jeff Foust
Monday, January 6, 2025

Star Bound: A Beginner’s Guide to the American Space Program, from Goddard’s Rockets to Goldilocks Planets and Everything in Between
by Emily Carney and Bruce McCandless III
University of Nebraska Press, 2025
hardcover, 296 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-4962-4139-9
US$34.95

A lot is going on in space this year. As soon as this Friday, Blue Origin will attempt the first launch of its long-awaited, and long-delayed, New Glenn rocket. That may take place the same day as the next test flight of SpaceX’s Starship vehicle, with more to follow that will include the first orbital flights of Starship and tests of propellant transfer needed for its later use on lunar landing missions. Three robotic lunar landers are set to launch early this year as well as signs of continued interest in the Moon and growing commercial capabilities.

But which of those milestones will we remember 25 or 50 years from now? That question came to mind while reading Star Bound, a history of American spaceflight by writers Emily Carney and Bruce McCandless III, the latter the son of astronaut Bruce McCandless. As the book’s subtitle indicates, this is an introductory book—regular readers of this publication are unlikely to gain any great new insights on the American space program—but is useful to understand how some examine the big picture of that effort.

The book follows a roughly chronological path from Robert Goddard to the present day, providing the reader with an overview of spaceflight without assuming they know much about it. It’s written in an approachable, occasionally irreverent tone, interspersed with top ten (actually, top eleven) lists from NASA’s coolest astronauts to the best space books and movies.

The book doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it can be serious, and even poignant. An example is a passage contrasting the post-Apollo 11 careers of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin: “Neil obtained secular sainthood. Buzz became the space community’s problem child, subject to almost as much eye rolling as reverence, beloved but bewildering, a deity best experienced in small doses. A trip to the moon could change a man. But maybe it could also lock him into place.”

Any wide-ranging history of a subject requires decisions on what to include and emphasize and what to exclude or deemphasize. In Star Bound, there is a strong emphasis on human spaceflight, with chapters on program from Mercury to Artemis. There is far less, though, on robotic missions. A chapter on “Probes, Rovers, and the Golden Records” spends less than ten pages on Mariner 9, Pioneers 10 and 11, Landsat, Viking 1 and 2, and Voyager 1 and 2. Not a rover among them.

There is also an emphasis more on the early space program than more recent accomplishments. While Skylab merits a full chapter, the International Space Station gets only a couple pages, part of a chapter on cooperation between the US and Russia after the Cold War. That emphasis borders on nostalgia: “If one were asked to choose a year or two from its history as the best time in which to live in the United States, the midsixties would be a smart pick,” the authors argue. (They hastily add, “Not for everyone, of course—and not in every regard.”)

Space aficionados might have once agreed with that statement, given all the achievements and activity of the 1960s. But today is, arguably, a more exciting time, with space far more active and accessible. One wonders if future spaceflight historians of the latter 21st century will look back on our current era as a step towards bigger and more ambitious efforts, or with nostalgia as a better, vanished time.

Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.

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