Rocket Girl: The Story of Mary Sherman Morgan, America's First Female Rocket Scientist

282 Pages·2013·3.12 MB·English

by  George D. Morgan

Published 2013 by Prometheus Books Rocket Girl: The Story of Mary Sherman Morgan, America's First
Female Rocket Scientist. Copyright © 2013 by George D. Morgan. All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a
website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles and reviews.
Prometheus Books recognizes the following trademarks, registered trademarks, and service marks
mentioned within the text: Apple®, Boeing™, Boy Scouts of America®, Chevrolet®, Chrysler®, Coca-
SM
Cola®, Craigslist®, Facebook®, Ford®, Formica®, Gallup , Harley-Davidson®, iCloud®, IMDb®,
Jeep®, John Deere®, Kodak®, Lifetime®, Lucky®, Mercedes®, Mustang®, Pratt & Whitney®,
Rocketdyne®, Trivial Pursuit®, Volkswagen®, Volkswagen Bug®.
The Internet addresses listed in the text were accurate at the time of publication. The inclusion of a
website does not indicate an endorsement by the author or by Prometheus Books, and Prometheus Books
does not guarantee the accuracy of the information presented at these sites.
Cover design by Nicole Sommer-Lecht
Cover photo of Mary Sherman Morgan courtesy of G. Richard Morgan
Cover image of the Redstone/Jupiter C rocket with Explorer 1 satellite courtesy of NASA Inquiries should
be addressed to
Prometheus Books
59 John Glenn Drive
Amherst, New York 14228–2119
VOICE: 716–691–0133 • FAX: [phone]
WWW.PROMETHEUSBOOKS.COM
17 16 15 14 13 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Morgan, George D.
Rocket girl : the story of Mary Sherman Morgan, America's first female rocket scientist / George D.
Morgan.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61614-739-6 (pbk.) ISBN 978-1-61614-740-2 (ebook) 1. Morgan, Mary Sherman, 1921-
2004. 2. Rocketry—United States—Biography. 3. Women scientists—United States—Biography. 4.
Rocketry— United States—History—20th century. I. Title.
TL781.85.M67M67 2013
509.2—dc23
[B]
2013010090
Printed in the United States of America
Foreword
by Ashley Stroupe, PhD
Chapter 1: This Is a Story
Chapter 2: Prairie Girl
Chapter 3: The Raketenflugplatz
Chapter 4: The ABC's of Milking Cows
Chapter 5: I Have No Idea What You're Talking About
Chapter 6: “Mother Does Not Abide Photography”
Chapter 7: The Great Escape
Chapter 8: A Little of This, a Little of That
Chapter 9: An Odd Number
Chapter 10: Hidden Fortress
Chapter 11: A New Kind of War
Chapter 12: Whitewashed in White Sands
Chapter 13: Alias Chief Designer
Chapter 14: Red
Chapter 15: Politics, Philosophy, Television, and Cush' Sobash'ya
Chapter 16: Your Very Best Man
Chapter 17: Welcome to the Monkey Cage
Chapter 18: The Mysterious Unknown Propellant Project
Chapter 19: Smoke and Fire
Chapter 20: Don't Drink the Rocket Fuel
Chapter 21: Pusk!
Chapter 22: The Dutchman Cometh
Chapter 23: 310 at 1.75 and 0.8615 for 155
Chapter 24: The Law of Unintended Consequences
Chapter 25: Satellite without a Name
Chapter 26: Wings of the Condor
Author's Note
Acknowledgments
Photo Insert
Notes
Index
I remember, at three years old, watching Apollo 15 and seeing the astronauts
drive on a non-terrestrial body for the first time. I didn't know their names at the
time, but I sensed the importance of the moment and the specialness of these
people. I confidently announced that I was going to be an astronaut and go into
space. My parents didn't laugh. My mother didn't tell me I should think about
being a teacher or a nurse or a secretary instead. My engineer father never
doubted that I could follow in his footsteps, nor saw any reason why I shouldn't.
They just said “Okay.” I have had that sort of support and encouragement
throughout my life—from my parents, my teachers, my mentors, and my friends.
I majored in physics at a technical college and completed a PhD in robotics.
Today, though not an astronaut, I have gone into space as an engineer at the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory.
But this world of open doors in which I was raised is not the world Mary
Sherman Morgan faced. In that world, women were not considered capable of
technical work. The world that I took for granted was born slowly and painfully
through the perseverance, dedication, and mostly unknown efforts of exceptional
women like Mary. The growing pains began in earnest during World War II.
Technological and scientific advancement was essential for Western survival, but
men who would otherwise hold these jobs were suddenly overseas. The vacuum
was filled by those left behind—women like Mary, who insisted on taking every
science class in school despite all objections. For the first time, women were
given opportunities to apply these skills to something other than teaching, even
if, like Mary, they didn't have advanced education. And the country had a vested
interest in their success. After the war, women were expected to simply step
aside and slip back into the home or the classroom, and most had no choice but
to do so. Some remained in subordinate jobs due to economic necessity. But
some, like Mary, remained to satisfy newly found professional confidence and
satisfaction, and because they now had rare expertise in new fields. As her son
says, she was “determined not to be pigeon-holed” and she found a new place to
apply her expertise and commitment in aviation and rocketry.
I first heard of Mary Sherman Morgan when I saw the premiere of the play
Rocket Girl at Caltech in 2008. Parts of the story her son George told were
familiar to me from history—skepticism of her abilities, lack of recognition, low
pay, and being the only woman in her environment. But what is unique about
Mary is that she let her achievements speak for her. She didn't fight a public
battle about whether women could or should do the work—she just did the work.
Perhaps she thought a woman's work would not be trusted. Perhaps she knew
that attitudes can't be changed by force or by confrontation. She slowly and
subtly changed the attitudes of the men (and women) around her by simply,
quietly, being herself.
Unlike Mary, I never faced the still predominantly male world of engineering
as the only woman. I did, on occasion, encounter those who believed women
were not as capable, but I was able to dismiss them and not let their doubts
become mine. While workforce equality has some way to go, there are few
“firsts” left for women to conquer. By reading Mary's story, we are reminded
how far we have already come and, more importantly perhaps, we may learn
how to successfully complete the journey. When George asked me to write this
foreword, I wondered what Mary, who shunned public and professional
recognition, would think. I hope that she would appreciate the need to celebrate
those like her who persistently aspire to, and do, achieve something
extraordinary—not extraordinary for a woman, but extraordinary unqualified.
And in this new world Mary helped create, that is something to which we all can
aspire, while simply, though not necessarily, quietly being ourselves.
Ashley Stroupe
Ashley Stroupe, PhD, is a robotics engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, California. She performs research and supports operations of
spacecraft. In 2005 she became the first woman to remotely drive a vehicle on
another planetary body. She is currently one of a handful of “pilots” trained to
drive the Mars rovers.
This is a story about a mother who never talked to her children. This is a story
about a wife who rarely talked to her husband, though they were married for
fifty-three years. This is a story of a woman who desperately wanted happiness
but could never summon the strength to reach for it. This is a story of a woman
who had a family that loved her, but who struggled to love them in return. This is
a story about a woman whom people admired but could never get close to. This
is a story of a woman who harbored many secrets and lived in daily fear that
those secrets would one day be revealed. This is the story of a woman who took
those secrets to her grave. This is a story about America's first female rocket
scientist.
This is a story about my mother.
Mary Sherman was born on November 4, 1921, on a small farm in a remote
corner of North Dakota. There is no record of who was present that day, as the
Shermans were never great record keepers. On August 4, 2004—eighty-two
years later—Mary was admitted to the emergency room of West Hills Hospital in
West Hills, California, with chest pains. Her husband (my father), G. Richard
Morgan, was by her side. An hour later, Mary was dead. There is no record of
who else except my father was present, as the Morgans have never been great
record keepers. They wheeled her body out of the room, and a nurse collected
the possessions she left behind: a handful of home-sewn clothing, fifty feet of
clear plastic oxygen tubing, and a plastic bag overflowing with exotic
medications.
That afternoon, my father began calling his children, which included my
brother, Stephen (a long-haul trucker), my sister Monica (a draftsman living in
Oregon), and my sister Karen (a government health worker in nearby Orange
County). He called me last and asked that I write Mary's obituary for the Los
Angeles Times. I told him I would be honored.
I did not expect any challenges writing her obit. Even though my mother
always refused to discuss her 1950s top secret Cold War work with any of her
four children, we had learned quite a few things from eavesdropping on little
snippets of conversation between our parents and their friends. We knew, for
instance, that our mother had been a rocket scientist, that her work included
designing new and exotic rocket propellants, and that she had made several