Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for ages. Thoughtful and reserved, Joan is content with her life as a physics and astronomy professor at Rice University and as an aunt to her precocious niece, Frances. That is, until she stumbles across an advertisement seeking the first female scientists to join NASA's Space Shuttle program. Suddenly, Joan longs to be one of the few people to go to space. Selected from thousands of applicants in the summer of 1980, Joan begins her training at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, alongside an exceptional group of candidates.