This is a first edition of the seminal photobook by Cristina de Middel, telling the story of Zambia joining the space race between the USSR and the United States in the 1960s.

In 1964, a schoolteacher named Edward Makuka Knolls single-handedly initiated a space programme in Zambia, which aimed to put the first African on the moon. This came to an early end due to a lack of funding from either the Zambian Government or the United Nations.

In The Afronauts, Cristina de Middel retells this unlikely story, illustrating the narrative in her unique photographic style.