Atmosphere: Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

On a Saturday night in the Fall of 1980, Joan is surprised when she hears a knock on her door. She thinks it might be Griff, but when she opens the door, she sees Vanessa. Vanessa says she was in the building after making sure Donna, who was drunk, got home safe. And Vanessa says she knocked on Joan’s door because she hoped Joan would still be awake. Vanessa then says she has another reason for wanting to see Joan and explains that she has trouble identifying stars and constellations in the sky. Joan agrees to help her learn about the stars by taking her outside of the city with a telescope the next night. 

The next night, Joan goes to Vanessa’s house. The two then drive together out of the city to go to a place named Brazos Bend, where they’ll look at the stars. On the way, when they’re discussing Donna and Hank’s relationship, Vanessa says that Joan seems like something of a prude. Joan argues, and Vanessa asks Joan to say the worst thing she’s ever done. After thinking about it for a while, Joan says that when Barbara was in high school, Joan told their parents that Barbara was sneaking out of the house. Joan explains she did that because Barbara had gotten pregnant and had a miscarriage the year before, and Joan was afraid something similar might happen again. Joan’s parents grounded Barbara when they caught her sneaking out, and when Barbara asked Joan about it, Joan lied and said she didn’t know anything about it.

Joan then asks Vanessa about the worst thing she’s ever done. Vanessa says there are too many to count and then says she helped someone hotwire a car, slept around, and also did too many drugs when she was younger. Joan is surprised. Joan then asks Vanessa not to judge her for what she did to Barbara. Joan adds that she feels like she never tells the whole truth around Barbara because Barbara can be “delicate.” Vanessa reassures Joan that she doesn’t think of her any differently after hearing the story.

When Joan and Vanessa reach Brazos Bend, they lie on a blanket, and Joan takes out her telescope. She then points out different stars and constellations to Vanessa. As they’re looking at the stars, Vanessa says that she wishes she could be a pilot at NASA, but they won’t let her because her background is as a commercial pilot rather than a military pilot. But, Vanessa explains, women can’t be pilots in the military, which, in effect, means that women can’t be pilots at NASA.

Vanessa then says that her father had been a military pilot who died when his plane was shot down during the Korean War when Vanessa was six. As Vanessa grew up, she struggled with his absence and put herself in increasingly dangerous situations involving drugs and sex. At one point, though, her father’s best friend from the Navy encouraged her to fly alone. When Vanessa did, she felt at peace for the first time. At Brazos Bend, Vanessa and Joan then eat the food that Vanessa brought for them.

A week or so later, Barbara and Frances come to Joan’s apartment on a Friday. Joan has had to cancel the last few times they were supposed to come because she has been so busy. At the apartment, Joan talks to Frances about gravity, which Frances learned about at school that day. Joan then discusses the weightlessness that astronauts experience in space.

A few days later, with the other astronaut candidates, Joan undertakes a training session on a plane that’s used to simulate the weightlessness that astronauts experience in space. Joan feels like she’s going to vomit during the exercise, and another trainee named Jimmy makes a sexist comment to her. During the next session, Joan realizes that Jimmy is terrified. She then understands that he is hiding his fear behind his sexism. Joan then thinks that she’s been trying to prove to other candidates that she was as good as the men in the program. But Joan decides to change her approach because she sees that the norms that men have created and live by are backward and misguided. 

On a different day, during a flight with Hank, Joan thanks him for letting her get as much flying training as possible. She says she knows that other non-pilots are having a hard time getting the number of hours they need. Hank says that he likes Joan because she’s a hard worker. He then gives her a pair of aviator sunglasses so she can dress the part of a pilot.   

At a party on New Year’s Eve, Lydia approaches Joan and asks her if she thinks that Hank is the most likely candidate to go to space at this point. Joan says she doesn’t want to speculate, and Lydia says that Joan is hurting herself by not paying attention to the politics of the program. She adds that Joan is the hardest worker of all of them, except for Lydia herself, and she knows Joan is desperate to go to space, so, Lydia argues, Joan is doing herself a disservice by not paying attention to how politics will affect the decision of who’s chosen for missions to space. Joan tells Lydia that she needs to relax and opens a beer for her.