Loren Grush, Bloomberg News reporter and author of The Six: The Untold Story of America’s First Women Astronauts.” Credit: Christopher White

From inside Space Shuttle Discovery, astronauts watched Joe Allen inch toward Palapa B2, an Indonesian communications satellite stranded in low-Earth orbit by a failed kick motor. Allen stabbed the Stinger, a device NASA engineers created for this purpose, into the satellite’s engine nozzle.

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Debra Werner is a correspondent for SpaceNews based in San Francisco. Debra earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s degree in Journalism from Northwestern University. She is a recipient...