Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars

by Nathalia Holt

Overview

The riveting true story of the women who launched America into space.

In the 1940s and 50s, when the newly minted Jet Propulsion Laboratory needed quick-thinking mathematicians to calculate velocities and plot trajectories, they didn't turn to male graduates. Rather, they recruited an elite group of young women who, with only pencil, paper, and mathematical prowess, transformed rocket design, helped bring about the first American satellites, and made the exploration of the solar system possible.

For the first time, Rise of the Rocket Girls tells the stories of these women — known as "human computers" — who broke the boundaries of both gender and science. Based on extensive research and interviews with all the living members of the team, Rise of the Rocket Girls offers a unique perspective on the role of women in science: both where we've been, and the far reaches of space to which we're heading.

"If Hidden Figures has you itching to learn more about the women who worked in the space program, pick up Nathalia Holt's lively, immensely readable history, Rise of the Rocket Girls." — Entertainment Weekly

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316338905
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	01/17/2017
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	145,613
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.50(h) x 1.00(d)
Lexile:	1040L (what's this?)

About the Author

Nathalia Holt, Ph.D. is the New York Times bestselling author of Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars and Cured: The People who Defeated HIV. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, Slate, Popular Science, and Time. She is a former Fellow at the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, MIT, and Harvard University. She lives with her husband and their two daughters in Pacific Grove, California.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

January 1958: Launch Day 3

Part I 1940s

Chapter 1 Up, Up, and Away 7

Chapter 2 Headed West 37

Part II 1950s

Chapter 3 Rockets Rising 55

Chapter 4 Miss Guided Missile 78

Chapter 5 Holding Back 102

Chapter 6 Ninety Days and Ninety Minutes 123

Chapter 7 Moonglow 142

Part III 1960s

Chapter 8 Analog Overlords 159

Chapter 9 Planetary Pull 187

Chapter 10 The Last Queen of Outer Space 212

Part IV 1970s-Today

Chapter 11 Men Are from Mars 231

Chapter 12 Look Like a Girl 253

Epilogue 285

Acknowledgments 289

Notes 293

Index 325

Editorial Reviews

"Holt's book shines portraying the mathematical and engineering process behind JPL's many iconic spaceflight missions—including America's first satellite, Explorer 1, and the Voyager probes that explored the solar system—as well as the women's personal lives and the evolution of their unusual roles inside the male-dominated workplace."
—Space.com

"Rocket science has long been associated with men...but in Rise of the Rocket Girls, Nathalia Holt shines a light on the women behind the scenes."
—Eliza Thompson, Cosmopolitan, "6 New Books to Read This Month"

From the Publisher

★ 03/15/2016
In her latest offering, Holt (Cured: The People Who Defeated HIV) turns her attention to the women who served as "human computers"—people who computed data—for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), focusing on the laboratory's inception in the 1940s through the 1960s. These women did not occupy the usual positions open to females at the time (secretaries, nurses, or teachers) but instead worked alongside engineers to calculate trajectories, identify how rocket fuel could make missiles fly, and analyze vast experimental data. The book discusses JPL's evolution from an army-funded missile lab to its place in the NASA space program, and how each stage in the transition affected the lives and work of the individuals who would later become computer programmers and engineers themselves. Holt focuses on key figures in the JPL computing department, offering a personalized look at these unconventional women and their roles in launching humanity skyward. VERDICT Holt seamlessly blends the technical aspects of rocket science and mathematics with an engaging narrative, making for an imminently readable and well-researched work. Highly recommended to readers with an interest in the U.S. space program, women's history, and 20th-century history. [See "Editors' Spring Picks," LJ 2/15/16, p. 28.]—Crystal Goldman, Univ. of California, San Diego Lib.

Library Journal

12/01/2016
This absorbing offering sheds light on the women involved in the international space race in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s at California's Jet Propulsion Lab. An inspiring, stirring work that will appeal to teens interested in history, science, and feminism. —Hope Baugh, Carmel Clay Public Library, Carmel, IN

School Library Journal

2016-01-10
The history of women as vital contributors to advancements in early space exploration. In this engaging history and group biography, science journalist Holt (Cured: How the Berlin Patients Defeated HIV and Forever Changed Medical Science, 2014) reveals the significance of the young women mathematicians who staffed the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Beginning in the 1940s, women who had been the only females in college mathematics and chemistry classes found themselves part of an eager team of scientists and engineers whose first project was to produce "a new weapon, a long-range jet-propelled missile that could carry a thousand-pound warhead for a hundred miles at a speed capable of eluding an enemy fighter aircraft." Drawing on interviews with surviving team members, Holt traces the frustrations, failures, and successes of rocket development before computers came on the scene. Working with pencils, graph paper, and notebooks, it took one woman a day to calculate a single rocket's trajectory, plotting the path in a hand-drawn picture. Sometimes they used a Friden calculator, a heavy, unwieldy mechanism that vibrated noisily. When the IBM 704 computer—weighing more than 30,000 pounds and costing $2 million—arrived in the late 1950s, the JPL staff was suspicious. "The engineers and computers preferred to do their calculations by hand," writes the author, "not trusting the massive machines that had too many glitches to be trustworthy." After Russia sent Sputnik into space, the JPL pressed for funds to develop a satellite, frustrated that Eisenhower's administration "worried that the space race might turn into the space war." They were jubilant when they were finally able to work on unmanned missions. Besides chronicling the development of America's space program, Holt recounts the women's private lives—marriages, babies, and the challenge of combining motherhood and work—gleaned from her interviewees' vivid memories. A fresh contribution to women's history.

Kirkus Reviews