That kind of bullshit went on for half an hour. By the end of it, York was feeling restless, baffled by the barrage of jargon, bemused by the slowness and apparent waste of time. It was like, she imagined, being inside an unusually clean men’s locker room.

She felt intimidated and out of place. How can I make a mark in an environment like this?

She met the rest of the cadre she’d been recruited into: eight others, all men, mostly with flying experience. They looked bright, eager, young, alert. Christ, three of them are already wearing astronaut-issue sport shirts! How had they known?

Chuck Jones took the new rookies on a tour of the Center.

She peered through doorways into the empty offices of senior astronauts. All the rooms looked the same, neat and spruce and barely lived-in, with pictures of spacecraft and airplanes on the walls. On the desks were boys’ toys: aircraft and lunar modules, and models of the new Saturn VB, with solid rocket boosters you could snap on and off.

She half expected to see spare sport shirts hanging behind the veneered doors.

Everywhere they walked, people deferred to Jones, as if he was some kind of king. He didn’t seem to notice. My God, York thought. There are going to be some monumental egos around here.

Jones led the nine of them into his big office in Building 30 and gave them coffee. He walked them through their induction program. For her first year York would be an “ascan” — an astronaut candidate. She’d go through six months of classroom lectures on astronomy, aerodynamics, physiology, spacecraft systems, interplanetary navigation, upper atmosphere physics… Back to school. There would be visits to Kennedy, Marshall, Langley, and other NASA centers.

They’d be “smoothed,” as Jones put it; the instructors would try to ensure that they all emerged with a certain base level of skills in every discipline, regardless of their background. That was partly for PR purposes, York gathered, so they could talk intelligently on every aspect of their future missions.

There would be some physical training, in simulators and centrifuges and the like. There would be some compulsory flight experience, in the back of a T-38, but, unlike previous cadres of scientist-astronauts, this group would not have to attend flight school.

It was a break from tradition. They’re letting in astronauts who aren’t pilots! Chuck Jones looked as if he were chewing nails as he forced the news out, and some of the more bushy-tailed guys looked disappointed; one even asked if he could volunteer for flight school.

After their ascan year, the candidates would be put on the active roster and would be considered for assignment to flights. Then, maybe two years before a flight, mission-specific training would begin…

“In theory,” Jones said.

Someone spoke up. “In theory, sir?”