The Spaceflight Narrative - by Alexander MacDonald (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

How three hundred years of storytelling and literature laid the foundations for spaceflight, from NASA's first chief economist.

The Spaceflight Narrative explores the earliest origins of spaceflight as it emerged through storytelling in works of literature and commentary dating back over three hundred years. Spaceflight emerged first as a cultural product that inspired, motivated, and transferred knowledge to the earliest spaceflight technology pioneers. Written by NASA's former chief economist Alexander MacDonald, the book covers the history of the conceptual development of spaceflight from the first story, written in the 1620s, of a person building a machine that goes to the Moon, all the way through to the 1890s when visions of spacefaring adventures across the solar system had become common.

The book highlights the largely unknown contributions to spaceflight of popular cultural figures like Edgar Allan Poe, Daniel Defoe, and John Jacob Astor IV, as well as some striking forgotten figures of history like Francis Godwin, John Leonard Riddell, and Florence Carpenter Diedonné.

We travel into space because enough people have believed in a story of humanity's future that includes a future in space and have dedicated their resources and labors to make it happen. This book is the first to trace in detail the earliest versions of this story and to explore the origins of the spaceflight narrative that today has become a mainstream part of global culture and our shared imagined future.

Review Quotes

ENDORSEMENTS

"The tight feedback loop between science fiction and actual scientific achievement is nowhere better illustrated than in this fine account and analysis of the early tales of fantastic off-planet voyages that eventually inspired the pioneering work of getting humans into space. MacDonald has excavated a prehistory as entertaining and illuminating as the stories he has gathered into focus."
--Kim Stanley Robinson, author of The Ministry for the Future

"Humans have been storytellers since our earliest origins. In The Spaceflight Narrative, Alexander MacDonald shows us how the stories we tell about spaceflight today may help shape humanity's future."
--Scott Solomon, Teaching Professor of BioSciences at Rice University; author of Becoming Martian: How Living in Space Will Change Our Bodies and Minds

"A fascinating look into not just the origins of spaceflight, but the philosophy and culture that has come with it. This book helped me discover the long-forgotten ideas that originally emboldened and inspired me to turn myself into an astronaut."
--Colonel Chris Hadfield, astronaut, author of An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, You Are Here, The Darkest Dark, The Apollo Murders, The Defector, and Final Orbit

"A must-read for all who look up and out: Humans imagined space exploration, wrote stories about it, and finally made it real. MacDonald's tour de force shows where our stories might lead us next."
--Lindy Elkins-Tanton, Director of the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory and Lead of the NASA Psyche mission; author of A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman: A Memoir and Mission Ready: How to Build Teams That Perform Under Pressure

"Compelling and beautifully crafted, The Spaceflight Narrative reveals how centuries of literary imagination animated humanity's journey into the cosmos. An insightful exploration of the power of stories to shape our history and our future."
--Teasel Muir-Harmony, Curator of the Apollo Collection, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum; author of Operation Moonglow: A Political History of Project Apollo

About the Author

Alexander MacDonald served as NASA's first chief economist. In this role, he helped to establish NASA's Moon to Mars strategy and Artemis and served as the program executive for the International Space Station National Laboratory. He is the author of The Long Space Age. He was awarded the NASA Exceptional Service Medal in 2024.