What is the appeal of this show?

I think it's about seeing a familiar history told from a different perspective. I live in Florida, so even though I'm too young to remember the early days of the space program, I've been to the Kennedy Space Center multiple times, and these stories, these names are familiar to me. But I never knew about Annie Glenn's struggle with stuttering or that Gordon Cooper had a wife who wanted to be an astronaut or anything like that. So that was what made it interesting.

"Arguing with trolls is like playing chess with a pigeon . . . ."

Sara I was born in 1964, and I can still remember our principal and teachers, gathering us in a large area in the basement of our school, and us watching the launch of Apollo 13. I remember how we children watched it, mezmerized by what we were witnessing! Fast forward through the years, and the space program only took up t.v. time, if there was some sort of issue, the awe of space travel was long gone!

As for the Astronaut Wives Club, I enjoy seeing some of the items from my youth, the furnishings, home decor, like the big black and white cabinet televisions. You asked about the women specifically though, I think that what I appreciate, is that the range of personalities of the wives, encapsulated the times well. There were the women like Louise Shepherd, while happy to be homemakers, they still asked, 'What if?' The women like Trudy Cooper, that feigned happiness to advance their husband's careers. Rene Carpenter that decided she couldn't quell the question, 'What if?' The other wives, while not being 'career' women, that took care of their homes, supported their husbands, but still did important works, like Marge Slayton (Mother Marge). You have to appreciate the pressures those wives faced, this was occurring during the infancy of the Women's Lib movement, and much like it is today (though not near as contentious) women that chose not to work outside the home, were for the first time, feeling like they had to justify being homemakers. As though it wasn't enough and they were falling short.

I also enjoy how the women were diverse in many ways, which was glaring in the beginning, but because only a small group of individuals would ever know how they felt, they came to rely on each other for not only friendship, but needs the outside world, not NASA not even their husband's could fulfill! I'll admit, I cried at the end! Not sure if any of what I have typed helped you or not Sara. Good Luck with your paper!

I enjoyed this show because it shows an amazing time in our history as Americans and women. I also love Mad Men. I think America was a much more polite and gentrified place before the late 60's when everything went crazy. I was born in 1968 and my son born in 1998 cannot believe the changes our country has gone through in just my lifetime.

The appeal of this show came from a few different directions for me and my longtime girlfriend/lifepartner. First, I was born on July 31, 1968. They were walking on the Moon when I was just about to have my first birthday and my mom always talked about the two in concurrent sentences. I always felt "linked" somehow. Two, as a young male growing up in America, I KNEW that we would someday colonize the Moon and I would be one of those colonists(I grew up reading Heinlein). Third, as a military veteran, who has jumped out of many a plane as a paratrooper, I have only the greatest respect for the bravery of the early astronauts who paved the way for what we now seem almost blase about, sadly. Finally, for me, it was the backstory of these very strong women who supported their husbands' ambitions to get into space while trying to maintain/find their own identities. My girlfriend is a strong woman with her own business who admired the fact based portrayal of these strong women. We're both in agreement on this show. A Grand Slam home run.

Outside of a dog, a book is Man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.

Thank you all for your very insightful responses. I am actually researching the potential for a TV series set in 1970s New York and based on the Dana McGarry series of novels by Lynn Steward about an ambitious young woman working in women's retail at B. Altman, the political and social issues of the time and the now iconic women (Diana Vreeland, Estee Lauder, Diane Von Furstenburg, Deborah Turbeville, Jackie Onassis, Rosamond Bernier) who have been woven into the plot.

The girl-on-girl scenes.

I was a year old when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon and still remember watching other moon missions in class rooms at school. Even as a youngster who didn't fully understand what was happening, it was still exciting to see the fuzzy black and white live video of it happening.

What I think I like the most about this show is that it does a great job of portraying life at that time (although I wasn't quite born yet, it wasn't that vastly different 10 years later, and I'm old enough to understand how things were just a few years earlier). I'm a harsh critic, but I'm very impressed with how accurately they portray the time period in this show, unlike so many others.

As a man, I'm not sure that I connect with the women's rights facet as much as a woman might, but I still understand it and I agree with how it's portrayed here. Again, that facet has been portrayed very accurately in my opinion.

I never read the book, but I've enjoyed the show much more then I expected. And I hate to keep harping on the same subject, but the accurate portrayal of that period in time is critical in my appreciation of the show, because you can't really tell the story without it. Things are so vastly different today, and I'm not sure those who are much younger can understand, or fully appreciate, all the differences.

I love it because:

- it's space related
- it's the 60s
- the hair, the fashion