The Space Foundation has recognized Fred Ledley’s first novel Sputnik’s Child as a Certified Space Imagination Product(TM). The novel recalls the events that shaped the ideas and lives of the baby boom generation and laid the groundwork for an age of technology and its challenges. It explores how a generation was inspired by the Apollo missions to the Moon, the drama of Apollo 13 and the tragedy of Space Shuttle Challenger. Told through the eyes of a woman born the day Sputnik was launched in 1957, the story follows her from childhood through the “Age of Aquarius,” a time of social malaise, the “Me” decade and years of irrational exuberance to experience both the full potential of a technological age and its unfulfilled promise.
“Readers of this engaging novel will relive the emotions they felt hearing the Apollo astronauts read Genesis from lunar orbit, watching men walk on the lunar surface and witnessing the tragedy of Challenger and they’ll recall how these experiences shaped their identities and ideas.” said Iian Roberts, Vice President – education, Space Foundation.
Sputnik’s Child is available in paperback and electronic editions from Amazon.com, online retailers and by request at bookstores.You can learn more about Fred and his book on his website, and you can read the full announcement on the Space Foundation’s website here.[subscribe2]
