The Calculating Stars

The Calculating Stars is the first novel in Mary Robinette Kowal's Lady Astronaut series, an alternate history that begins in 1952 when a huge meteorite strikes near the Chesapeake Bay and wipes out Washington, D.C. Elma York, a former World War II service pilot and a gifted mathematician, survives the impact with her husband, Nathaniel, an engineer. Elma's calculations show that the strike will set off a climate disaster that could make Earth unlivable within decades, and the world turns to an accelerated space program as humanity's way forward. Elma joins the new International Aerospace Coalition as a computer, but she wants to fly, and she confronts the sexism and racism that keep women and people of color out of the astronaut corps, along with an anxiety she has long kept hidden. The novel is written for adult readers.