Late on a Saturday, Joan Goodwin unwound from the intensity of NASA’s jargon-heavy training by playing piano. A knock startled her; it was Vanessa Ford, not a neighbor or John “Griff” Griffin as Joan briefly feared. Vanessa teased Joan about her scream, asked Joan to check on their drunk colleague Donna the next day, and then admitted she had a favor to ask: Vanessa struggled to recognize constellations in dark skies and wanted Joan’s help.

Joan agreed and proposed a lesson the following night outside the city with her telescope. The next evening, Joan arrived at Vanessa’s teal bungalow, where Vanessa appeared with a cooler of sandwiches and drinks and offered to drive her cream convertible. On the highway toward Brazos Bend, they discussed the first American woman in space, with both acknowledging NASA’s secrecy and pressures. Vanessa abruptly asked if Donna and Hank Redmond were sleeping together; Joan cautiously confirmed and bristled at the language.

They traded confessions: Joan revealed she once woke her parents to stop her sister Barbara from sneaking out after a prior miscarriage, then lied to Barbara about it, a pattern tied to Barbara’s volatility that Joan hated in herself. Vanessa offered a contrasting history of teenage theft, hot-wiring, promiscuity, drug use including LSD and heroin, and a desire to be a “bad girl,” asking Joan not to misread her honesty. Vanessa reassured Joan that she liked her as she was.

At Brazos Bend under a star-filled sky, Joan taught Vanessa Hercules, pointing out Rasalgethi and Kornephoros, the Keystone asterism, and its mythic context. Joan explained why astronomy comforts her—our bodies share elements with the stars—and how the night sky is a reliable map. Vanessa spoke about her identity as a pilot and frustration that NASA bars her from fully checking out in the T-38 because she lacks military credentials, which likely blocks her from piloting the shuttle, despite NASA bending other rules for military candidates.

They moved on to Scorpius and Antares, then Ophiuchus and Serpens. Vanessa disclosed her father, a Navy pilot, died flying an F9F Panther over Sui-ho Dam when she was six, and her mother remarried a year later. She described acting out in adolescence, sometimes trying to lose herself rather than being lost. Uncle Bill, her father’s Navy friend, introduced her to flying; soloing at seventeen gave her peace, a safer thrill that replaced destructive risks. Joan listened with empathy.

Lying on the blanket, they found Cygnus and discussed myths and the human impulse to place gods in the heavens. Joan revealed a quiet faith and sense of cosmic kinship; Vanessa warned that reaching space might tempt astronauts to feel godlike. Joan, inwardly moved, recognized her own yearning to touch the divine and find meaning among the stars. The night closed with an unspoken deepening of trust and connection between them.