Astro Turf: The Private Life of Rocket ScienceA daughter's journey to rediscover her father and understand the culture of space engineers During the late 1960s, while M. G. Lord was becoming a teenager in Southern California and her mother was dying of cancer, Lord's father-an archetypal, remote, rocket engineer- disappeared into his work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, building the space probes of the Mariner Mars 69 mission. Thirty years later, Lord found herself reporting on the JPL, triggering childhood memories and a desire to revisit her past as a way of understanding the ethos of rocket science. Astro Turf is the brilliant result of her journey of discovery. Remembering her pain at her father's absence, yet intrigued by what he did, Lord captures him on the page as she recalls her own youthful, eccentric fascination with science and space exploration. Into her family's saga she weaves the story of the legendary JPL- examining the complexities of its cultural history, from its start in 1936 to the triumphant Mars landings in 2004. She illuminates its founder, Frank Malina, whose brilliance in rocketry was shadowed by a flirtation with communism, driving him from the country even as we welcomed Wernher von Braun and his Nazi colleagues. Lord's own love of science fiction becomes a lens through which she views a profound cultural shift in the male-dominated world of space. And in pursuing the cause of her father's absence she stumbles on a hidden guilt, understanding "the anguish his proud silence caused both him and me, and how rooted that silence was in the culture of engineering." |
Contents
| 1 | |
or A Foot Soldiers Story | 21 |
The Rockets Red Glare Part 1 | 60 |
The Rockets Red Glare Part 2 | 70 |
or Portrait of the Artist | 104 |
Gender Parity Part 1 | 124 |
No Lost Opportunity | 159 |
Gender Parity Part 2 | 185 |
Bouncing Toward Meridiani | 204 |
Acknowledgments | 221 |
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aerospace Air Force American Apollo Arthur astronauts began California Caltech cold-war cold-war-era Communist Convair culture designed director Disney Donna Shirley Earth engi Ercoupe exploration father flight Frank Malina GALCIT Galileo Gavit gender Gentry Lee Heinlein Ibid Interview January JATOs JPL engineer JPL's lab's Lander landing launch look male Malina FBI file Malina to parents March Marcia Neugebauer Mariner 69 Mariner Mars 69 Martian Memo MER-A MER-B Millikan missile mission Mittelbau Dora moon mother NASA NASA's Nazi neers Neufeld Neugebauer never Northrop orbit Parsons Parsons's Pasadena Pathfinder Peenemünde Pete Theisinger physicist planet Press project manager rocket rocketry Roger rover Saturn scientists Shirley's solar space program spacecraft Squyres Steve Squyres story technical Theodore von Kármán things tion told took Tsien Turing UNESCO University wanted Wernher von Braun woman women World Wunderman York