“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Most people know that these words were said by Neil Armstrong, the first human to set foot on the moon. Many books have been written and movies made about the early years of space travel and the first astronauts. Except for old articles in LIFE magazine, much less has been written about the wives of those astronauts. Lily Koppel has addressed this lack of information in her book The Astronaut Wives Club. The book describes how the wives were expected to be the “perfect American wife.” Their own hopes, dreams and goals were to be secondary to helping their husbands’ careers and space travel aspirations. Here we get to see the real women behind the carefully orchestrated image. The Astronaut Wives Club is a good companion to Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, which chronicles the beginnings of the space program.