"It has been made abundantly clear to me that the moon mission isn't going to succeed without a computer on board." [p. 400]
Obviously you need computers for a space mission. But what if it's 1952, before electronic computers were reliable, fast or accurate?
On March 3rd, 1952, a meteorite destroys Washington DC, causes widespread devastation and loss of life, and triggers catastrophic climate change which threatens life on earth: a potential extinction event. The only hope for humanity is to head outwards -- to build colonies on the Moon and Mars, and throughout the solar system. Which means that the space race (no longer really a race, more of an international effort) is under way.
Dr Elma York is a mathematician, physicist and pilot: she logged hundreds of hours during the Second World War, outflying Messerschmidts and transporting planes to where they were most needed. Now, like her fellow WASPs (Women Airforce Service Pilots: though, yes, they were all white), she's grounded, forced to sit back and watch while men with less experience are admitted to the astronaut training programme.
Elma is Jewish, and a woman, so encounters a plethora of prejudice: she's not without her own bias, predominantly racial, though she does work hard on overcoming this when she realises that she is failing to consider or respect the Black women she knows -- many of whom are also pilots, and / or mathematicians. A lot of the women in The Calculating Stars are professional mathematicians: computers, as they were known. And of course you need computers for space missions.
I greatly enjoyed this novel, the first in a duology, which I received as part of the Hugo voters' pack. Elma is a likeable, flawed protagonist with anxiety issues -- largely connected with being a female prodigy in a male-dominated discipline -- and a determination to be judged by merit, rather than by gender. She's opposed by several men in positions of power (one of whom has nursed a grudge since Elma reported him for harassment), but finds a supportive community among the women she encounters. And she is instrumental in challenging sexist assumptions: for instance, when told that she needs to show her workings on a maths test, her friend Nicole points out that Elma wrote the equations. The examiner says it's not enough to write out the answers: he needs to see the workings. Elma explains that she originated many of the equations, and has used the others on a daily basis for years. "He blinked. 'Oh.' He set the pages down and smoothed them. 'I see. That would have been useful information to know earlier.'" (p. 349)
It's not all antagonism. There are several positively-depicted male characters here, including Elma's well-meaning and generally delightful husband (who does need nudging to question his own assumptions, but accepts such nudges with good grace), and the new Quaker President, formerly the Secretary for Agriculture -- extremely useful to have someone who understands climate and farming in such a situation!
The meteorite's effects on the climate are not the focus of the novel. They're a slow, quotidian annoyance. Children grow up not knowing what the stars look like: there's constant cloud-cover due to the steam in the atmosphere: there's a long, long winter, and then the start of a summer that may never end. What The Calculating Stars does best, its big idea, is the acceleration of the space age, and the pivotal role of women.
Also, as it turned out, a perfect fit for the 'a woman in science' rubric of the 'Reading Women Challenge 2019'.
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