Kevin Cook

Kevin Cook brings a journalist’s close reporting and character-centered history to books that revisit major events. The Burning Blue tells the story of teacher Christa McAuliffe and the Challenger shuttle disaster, placing her selection for NASA’s Teacher in Space program within the institutional decisions, engineering warnings, media attention, and personal hopes surrounding the mission. The 2021 Henry Holt edition rests on archival material, correspondence, and interviews with people connected to the crew and program. Cook gives McAuliffe a life beyond the familiar televised image, tracing her work as an educator and the public meaning attached to her planned lessons from orbit. The Burning Blue received the American Astronautical Society’s Eugene M. Emme Award for Astronautical Literature. That recognition suits Cook’s approach: he combines the momentum of narrative journalism with careful attention to how individual ambition, public institutions, and technical judgment met in a nationally remembered loss.