Book excerpt: Featuring biographical chapters on the leaders who served in space roles in the U.S. Air Force, Army, or Marine Corps, including officers who experienced the celestial skies firsthand as astronauts, Space Force Pioneers aims to enhance the reader’s understanding of character and leadership in military space from the experiences of these elite, ground-breaking leaders. The opening chapter explains in detail how the United States Space Force evolved from the Air Force. It is followed by ten biographical chapters that examine the stellar careers of space pioneers and illuminate their varied leadership styles. The chapter authors, all experts on the subject matter, engagingly capture the essence of these impressive individuals by incorporating information derived from the personal papers of their subjects and—in some cases—oral histories and interviews, along with other historical sources. They make clear the lasting contributions each of these leaders made to military space while serving in or out of uniform. Space Force Pioneers offers insight and analysis into how these unique leaders have operated in the performance of their duties, as well as chronicling changes in military space over the past four decades. The volume concludes with a broad and probing interpretation of contemporary space leadership, which offers a vehicle for comparing the accomplishments of these distinctive military space leaders.