America may have put the first man on the moon, but it was the Soviet space program that made Valentina Tereshkova the first woman in space. Meanwhile, in the United States, NASA’s first female astronauts were racing toward milestones of their own. These trail-blazing women were admitted into Group 9, NASA’s first mixed-gender class. They had the challenging task of convincing the powers that be that a woman’s place is in space. But once they’d been admitted into the training program, they discovered that NASA had plenty to learn about how to make space travel possible forallhumans.InAstronauts: Women on the Final Frontier, Jim Ottaviani and illustrator Maris Wicks capture the great humor and incredible drive of Mary Cleve, Valentina Tereshkova, and others.AUTHOR INFORMATIONJim Ottaviani began writing graphic novels about scientists in 1997. They includeThe Imitation Game,Primates,Feynman, andHawking. His books areNew York Timesbestsellers, have been translated into over a dozen languages, and have received praise from publications ranging fromNatureandPhysics WorldtoEntertainment WeeklyandVariety. gt-labs.comMaris Wicks lives in sunny Somerville, Massachusetts. She is the author behindHuman Body Theater, as well as the illustrator ofNew York Times–bestsellingPrimates, with Jim Ottaviani. When she's not making comics, Wicks works as a program educator at the New England Aquarium.