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My introduction to Mary Robinette Kowal is The Calculating Stars, whose keywords rang up like a jackpot: 1950s. Doomsday event. Social injustice. Space flight. Judaism. Female protagonist. That had me on board. Published in 2018, I found the book at my nearest library and opened it sight unseen. I found a lot to give Kowal credit for, the least of which is building an imaginative alternate history and dealing with civil rights. But I grew awful bored with her story and started flipping pages. This is another example of a novel with terrific table dressing but little on the plate.

The story begins March 3, 1952 with a rousing start as Elma York (née Wexler) recounts where she was when the Meteor hit. A veteran of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, with combat experience flying supply missions over Europe, Elma is a computer (mathematician) in addition to being a pilot. She now works with the launch of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. Her husband Nathaniel is a rocket scientist. Thomas Dewey is president. Interrupted from sexual recreation at a cabin in the Poconos at 9:52 a.m., a flash outside has Nathaniel thinking A-bomb, except radio is broadcasting. Elma theorizes it might've been a meteor.

An earthquake levels the cabin. The couple survive and Edward R. Murrow comes on the air to state that a meteorite has struck off the coast of Maryland. D.C. and Baltimore have been vaporized, along with Elma's parents. Running calculations, Elma gives them 15 minutes before the airwave hits. The couple are unable to reach the airfield where Elma parked her Cessna in time, but ultimately get into the air with only cuts and bruises. Elma glides to a landing at Wright-Patterson Air Base in Ohio after ejecta destroys her propeller. On the ground, they find Col. Stetson Parker, an ambitious and condescending "schmuck" who Elma knew from the war, certain the Soviet Union has attacked.

Parker took the chair behind the desk, and only now did I notice his nameplate set front and center. I was surprised he had twins. I wonder who'd married him. He steepled his fingers together fingers together and sighed again. "An explosion--"

"A meteorite."

"That's what the news reported. But given that Washington was wiped out? I place my money on the Russians."

Nathaniel cocked his head. "Is there radioactivity?"

"We haven't gotten anyone close enough to the blast area to check."

Idiot. I spelled things out for him. "There's ejecta falling all around, which, first of all, you could just test for radioactivity. Second, that's not something that happens with an A-bomb. It occurs when a meteorite punches a hole in the atmosphere and the blast material is sucked into space, then falls back to Earth."

His eyes narrowed. "Then know this. The United States Congress was in session, both the House and the Senate. Our federal government was nearly entirely wiped out. The Pentagon, Langley ... So even if this was an act of God, do you honestly think the Russians won't try to take advantage of it?"

That ... was a terrifyingly good point. I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest to ward off the chill in the air.

Rather than take up space on base that will soon be needed for an influx of refugees, Elma and Nathaniel are taken in by Major Eugene Lindholm, an African American pilot who escorted their plane to Ohio, and his wife. General Dwight Eisenhower has recalled troops and returned from Europe, a ceasefire has been declared in the Korean Peninsula and Secretary of Agriculture Charles Brannan has been found in Kansas and sworn in as president. While Nathaniel attends a marathon of meetings and uses data crunched by his wife to calm fears that Russia directed the meteorite, Elma is relegated to duties as a volunteer nurse.

Her studies of the impact lead Elma to a bigger concern than World War III. Running her calculations by her brother Hershel, a meteorologist in California, she calculates that "nuclear winter" conditions will ultimately be followed by a greenhouse effect which will bake the planet and make Earth uninhabitable. Her presentation to President Brannan is not embraced by everyone, but preparations are made to reduce greenhouse emissions as well as prepare mankind for life elsewhere in the solar system. Of the "Artemis Seven" astronauts chosen to lead America into the stars, all are men, all are white, and the first in space, in 1956, is Stetson Parker.

Relocating to the nation's capitol in Kansas City, the Yorks work in Sunflower Mission Control. Dr. York is a flight engineer and Mrs. York a computer. She concludes that if the goal is to colonize the stars, women astronauts are a must. Her flight director explains that he'll never risk a female pilot's life and jeopardize funding, while America's hero Stetson Parker tells Elma that he'll never allow lady astronauts. To demonstrate their capabilities, Elma organizes an all-women's air show, striking a bargain with the Kansas City Negro Aeronautics Club to loan them their best pilots and six Mustangs for the show. Her goal is simple: women in space flight.

"When sewing machines were first introduced, people were frightened because they were new and moved with an unprecedented speed. There was concern that you could go blind from watching the machine. So the manufacturers made them beautiful: they added gilding and floral motifs."

Parker snorted, "So you want to send some Lady Astronauts up as decoration?"

"As we explained to the congressional hearing, our goal is to expand humanity to other worlds. You will need women on those worlds or they will never be self-sustaining colonies." I glared at Parker. "I trust you don't need me to explain the biology of babies?"

"Babies or no, it's not safe." Parker shook his head and smiled. "I appreciate your ambition, I really do, but surely the Orion 27 accident demonstrates that we can't put women in the line of fire."

"No. That is the wrong tactic to take. If you point to the explosion as a sign that rocketry is not safe, the space program will fail." I looked back at Director Clemons, but with the cigar in his mouth, it was hard to read his expression. "You know it will. If you want to demonstrate that the program is safe, then you need to demonstrate that these rockets are safe enough even for ladies."

Parker shrugged, as if none of that mattered. "And we will ... after the moon base has been established."

I pressed my hands flat against my skirt to keep me from balling them into fists. "If you refer to page six of my report ... After World War II, there is no shortage of women who flew as WASPs and have the right skills. But if you wait too long, those women will be too old, which will raise the barrier of creating the colonies."

"She has a point." Wernher von Braun, of all people, stepped into Clemons' smoke cloud to support me. "The Russians used their Night Witches in the war to devastating effect."

Parker tilted his head at the mention of the Russian women's air squadron. "I always thought they were propaganda."

"Propaganda, perhaps to begin with. But real and effective." Von Braun shrugged. "And even propaganda has its uses. We want the space program to continue, yes?"

Propaganda. Yes. I was well aware of what propaganda could do.

There are details in this alternate history science fiction civil rights novel that I found compelling. Elma and Nathaniel are part of a diaspora who lost family back east. Jewish observations are a part of the book. Sexism is confronted and so is racism, with the skin color of the refugees alarmingly white until Major Lindholm and his wife, with help from Elma, change that. The Meteor and mankind's response raises questions whether those in charge value a diverse human race or would be content with it looking all white and mostly male. Global warming is pooh-poohed by deniers.

"A couple of years of bad weather, and they're telling us we have to go into space?" He shrugged, the flesh of his neck bunching over his collar with the movement. "Even if I believed this nonsense, why not spend the money making things better here on Earth?"

"They are." I rested my hand on Nathaniel's knee to let him know that I would take this one. "That's why we have rationing--they're trying to eliminate anything that will add to the greenhouse effect. The space program is just one aspect of it."

"Eternal winter. Please." Luther waved his hand toward the front window, where we starting to draw level with the top of the lock. "You heard the captain."

"I think you've misunderstood. The winter was temporary. The problem is that the temperature is going to start rising soon." 'Eternal summer' is what we're actually concerned about." Being in Kansas City, at the IAC, we were surrounded by people who understood that, and were all striving for the same goal. "Besides, it's not a good idea to keep all your eggs in one basket, right? All the space program is doing is making another basket for eggs."

"Ma'am, I appreciate your thoughts, but there are economic forces at work here that I don't expect you to understand. This is all about big business seeing an opportunity to make a buck off the government. It's conspiracies and shadows all the way down."

There are moments when this 1950s story is written with too much of a 2018 sensibility for me. It detours from an apocalyptic tale toward a second-rate version of The Right Stuff. There's already a first-rate version of The Right Stuff. It's The Right Stuff. Kowal imaginatively conjures a doomsday event, then puts her focus on Elma's obsession with social anxiety. The stakes remain low and I grew bored with the book, which concludes like the first installment of a series rather than a standalone novel. I appreciated the STEM material as well as the acknowledgment that the heroine has a sex life, but the story let go of me. It's a nice novel that I cautiously recommend.

Length: 100,870 words