Rise of the Rocket Girls

by Nathalia Holt

  Transferring to JPL, Marie found little to admire in the safety standards. They were equivalent to Aerojet’s rushed approach. While there was little opportunity to check their work, at least at JPL there was a large group of computers all looking over one another’s shoulders. Marie also found the work far more exciting. She felt she was finally in on the action, able to understand what her math was accomplishing and playing a key role in development. The hours, however, weren’t any better. The computers often sat at their desks for twelve hours a day, five days a week. They were exhausted, yet they needed to be more vigilant than ever about their math.

  The intensity of their work eroded their social lives outside the lab. Marie could feel her old friends slip away as she begged off dinner invitations and lunch dates. Conversely, within the gates of JPL their relationships were strengthening. The long days they spent together weren’t enough—the women were constantly planning evening parties where they would chat about their lives and JPL. They met regularly, Marie holding a spaghetti dinner at her home, Virginia Swanson (Ginny to her friends), inviting everyone over for a cold-cut smorgasbord. Janez would put off her long drive home to Los Angeles and linger among her friends in Pasadena. One night in Marie’s house in Alhambra they all gathered for a potluck. Barbara sat next to Patsy Nyeholt, the two of them chatting happily while Janez laughed with Ginny. Ginny and Marie held hands as they toasted the evening, all the girls raising a glass. Marie playfully brought a spoonful of food up to Ginny’s mouth, and they both laughed as their friends took a picture of them looking silly. The computers couldn’t seem to get enough of one another.

  Most days the computers and engineers ate their lunch outside at long tables rather than in the cramped commissary. Sitting at a table, surrounded by her colleagues, Marie felt the warm sunshine on her back as she listened to the conversation around her. She let the mundane details of her daily computations slip away while her co-workers discussed their latest designs. Contemplating the big picture and discussing the limits of their rockets were her favorite parts of the day.

  Although the lab was growing, it was still small enough to have a family feel. The JPL staff trusted and depended on one another, not just with their work, but also, given the nature of their experiments, with their lives. Unfortunately, accidents at the lab were bringing them closer together. At her first accident, at Aerojet, Marie had been merely a witness; now she would be the cause.

  Marie was working on the size of the nozzle opening for the Sergeant. It was a simple cylinder positioned at the exit of the rocket, but its size and shape were surprisingly critical. The nozzle accelerates the burning-hot exhaust as it leaves the shell. The faster the nozzle can get the exhaust to leave, the more thrust is generated to propel the missile upward. Marie was trying various nozzle sizes, calculating how fast they pumped the exhaust of nitric oxide and kerosene. She would open the nozzle wide in one calculation and then collapse it to almost nothing in the next. She wanted to try every combination she could.

  But time was running out, and she needed to get the data to the engineers for the round of tests that afternoon. She ran the formula quickly and sent it over. Sitting at her desk, she was mulling over the equations in her head when her reverie was broken by the wail of a siren. The buzzing whine meant that the experiment was about to run. Deep in the gravel pits, they were about to fire the engine based on her calculations. Suddenly her blood ran cold. She had forgotten to take the square root before sending over the calculations. Panicked, she ran to the phone, dialing the number as she heard a big boom sound over the hill. The phone emitted nothing but dead silence; the lines were always cut in preparation for an imminent test. In her mind she could picture the disaster, a giant explosion, a fire, and even perhaps some of her colleagues killed. She put the receiver back in its cradle and waited anxiously. All was quiet.

  Luckily, there was no death or dismemberment to haunt Marie. Instead an engineer appeared at the door looking slightly annoyed. “Well…,” he said, letting the word hang in the air. “I know,” Marie replied. “I’m sorry.” Despite the fact that her mistake had been the cause of an errant rocket engine, JPL called for no discipline or review. Instead Marie’s punishment lay in the anguish she had felt in those moments of waiting. The memory of that crushing feeling would stay with her, reminding her that with the numbers and formulas she scribbled in her notebook, she had the power to affect the lives of her colleagues.

  The team had designed the Sergeant to be the pinnacle of technologically advanced missile systems. It was the culmination of JPL’s expertise in rocketry and a beneficiary of what they had learned from their many mistakes. The rocket would be as big as the Nazis’ V-2 but able to carry a warhead nine times as heavy and with a guidance system so sophisticated it could reach its target from eighty-four miles away. Unlike the Corporal, which took nine hours to ready for launch, the Sergeant needed only ninety minutes.

  Marie was entranced by the instrumentation that would be incorporated in the Sergeant, which was truly cutting-edge. The focus in their group was widening from jet propulsion to electronics. The new director of JPL, William Pickering, was behind the changes. Unlike his predecessors, he wasn’t a rocket man—his research interest was in electronics, and the Sergeant’s command system was a technological leap. The Corporal missile had used a command guidance system, in which signals are sent from a ground station via radio waves to the missile. The system had drawbacks, namely problems with accuracy, the need for a large ground crew, and, more worrisome, its vulnerability. The enemy could detect the Corporal’s radio signal and possibly jam it or even take it over.

  To avert this, JPL was developing an inertial guidance system. This new system used accelerometers and gyroscopes placed within the missile to track its speed and position. The rotor spun while the gimbals swung around in varying directions. “It’s like a spinning top,” the engineers explained to Marie. The gyroscope seemed to defy gravity, at once spinning around an axis and stubbornly maintaining direction. The strength of its inertia gave the rocket stability. Large gyroscopes had found a place in rockets for years, but the new small ones powered by tiny electric motors were special. The ones JPL was testing in their rockets were covered in aluminum and steel and entwined in electrical wiring. The devices did not look particularly advanced, but within their casings was a delicate balance of movement.

  The gyroscopes were not only graceful but also had the potential to significantly improve the accuracy of missiles. Mounted onto a stable platform along the main axis of the missile, a gyroscope maintained its position in space, fighting against the movement of the rocket. As the rocket gained speed and altitude, the gyroscope had to work harder. With cables connecting the gyroscope to the fins of the rocket, the more it resisted, the more strongly it shifted the fins back and forth, correcting the rocket’s position.

  Now JPL needed no external reference points from a ground station to control the rocket. The computers calculated the effects of Earth’s gravitational force on the missile using the velocity and orientation data the new instruments offered. They played with hybrids of radio and inertial guidance. Labs all over the world were experimenting with gyroscopes to guide rockets, but no one had proved an all-inertial guidance system was possible. This made the army hesitant to approve JPL’s designs. Before the U.S. government could fund such a radical new technique, JPL had to prove it was feasible. The computers were unsure whether they could ever get the new approach to look pretty, even on paper.

  One morning one of the girls came into the computer room, giggling over a book she held pressed to her chest. Jean O’Neill’s nephew had lent her the book excitedly, wondering how much of the fantastic story it contained was true. The cover showed a rocket flying to the moon, a robot falling from the stars. The book was Moon Ahead, by Leslie Greener, and Jean had read all of its 256 pages in two nights. Much of the science fiction in the book had made her laugh, but what surprised her were the technical descriptions of rockets blasti
ng off into space, grappling with gravity and overcoming it thanks to a modern marvel: gyroscopes. As silly as the fantastical story was, there was a kernel of real science in its pages. The girls gathered around, laughing as Jean read passages aloud and admiring the illustrations of the rocket flying in space.

  Americans were fascinated with rockets and space, although not to the extent of those working at JPL. Everywhere the computers went they saw rocket toys and outer space–themed Tupperware parties and heard radio programs featuring spacemen. Perhaps it was this national obsession that drew Janez Lawson to JPL’s work on theoretical projects. Just as when she was an honor student in college, something about the “what-ifs” entranced her. She spent her days grappling with the most sophisticated missile system in the world, the Sergeant, while she spent her evenings planning her wedding.

  Janez was marrying the love of her life: Theodore Bordeaux. Theodore wasn’t from a well-to-do family and didn’t have a professional job. He was a junior at Los Angeles State College, a far cry in prestige from Janez’s alma mater, UCLA. But Janez didn’t care; she thought he was brilliant. They shared an ardent love for math and for each other.

  In contrast to the other girls, Janez didn’t live in Pasadena; few African Americans resided in the conservative, predominantly white suburb. Although her social standing in Los Angeles was high, in Pasadena things were different. Her grandmother worked as a cook for Pasadena’s prominent Jowitt family, so Janez knew all too well the importance of social hierarchy in the town. Peeking from the kitchen door as a child, she had witnessed the Jowitts’ garden parties: ladies dressed in bold print A-line dresses with crisp collars, whispering about one another. By 1950 these same women were heating up school board meetings, strongly opposing desegregation and pushing out the school superintendent who promoted it. Despite the racism that surrounded them, the Jowitts adored Janez’s grandmother. They bought her a house and a car and even sent her on vacations. It was in this house that Janez often spent the night, especially after working long days in the lab.

  Most of the time, however, she commuted from her mother’s home in Santa Monica. It was twenty miles down partially constructed freeways and roads twisting through the canyon. The horrendous traffic made the trek—often more than an hour each way—feel much farther. Her mother fretted over her driving that distance every day, even suggesting she find a job closer to home, but Janez wouldn’t hear of it. She had found a special group of women to work with at JPL and knew this kind of professional position wouldn’t be easy to find elsewhere. Still, she must have sometimes been lonely on that long drive. She was the only African American in the group, and her commute was symbolic of how much further she had come than many of her colleagues.

  Sometimes during her drive she wondered what married life would be like. Fantasies about moving into a house all her own with her husband crept into her thoughts. She was twenty-four years old, an old maid in the eyes of many friends who had married straight out of college, and she was ready to settle down. She dreamed of becoming a mother and raising a family. She hated the idea of giving up her work, but how would Theodore react to her long commute? It worried her.

  Their August wedding was an elaborate affair. The young couple said their vows in a church in Santa Monica before heading to their reception at the Wilfandel Club, the oldest African-American women’s club in Los Angeles. Sandwiched between Janez’s friends and family were her close friends from JPL. Marie Crowley’s eyes filled with tears as she watched Janez walk down the aisle in a white lace gown with folds of tulle peeking out from the bottom of the skirt. The wedding party danced in the garden in the moonlight, the smell of orchids all around them. Pearl Bailey, the famous actress and singer, sang “Takes Two to Tango,” and the dance floor filled with couples. As Marie watched the couple drive off for their honeymoon, she was happy for Janez, yet she wondered what would become of her now.

  For most American women, marriage meant being a housewife, but many of the computers had found a way to reconcile the two, managing their home and work lives with the poise of a surfer riding a cresting wave. The working wives kept their balance the best they could, unafraid of sometimes getting wet. Janez was a rare talent; the computers couldn’t imagine that such a brilliant woman would simply leave science behind. It would be a sad loss for the team.

  As Janez’s life was changing, the Sergeant project was coming to fruition. By 1956 the computers were completing their calculations at JPL and watching from afar as the missile underwent testing at White Sands. In contrast to the many accidents and delays of the Corporal, the Sergeant testing went relatively smoothly. Before they knew it, they were watching newsreels of the Sergeant flying over White Sands. It was the finest missile they had ever seen, and it would be the last weapon the girls would ever work on.

  JPL’s contributions to weaponry would only ever have limited success. Bureaucratic interruptions delayed the missiles from entering production, meaning that they became obsolete not long after they were operational. By the time the girls saw pictures of the Sergeant strapped to an army jeep in Korea, they had moved on, rarely giving thought to the missiles they once helped develop. Instead, they would find that their calculations were needed for a new kind of exploration.

  The Miss Guided Missile contest was coming to a close. The music was slowing down, and the lights dimmed. Barbara smiled as she posed for pictures. She was second runner-up. She smiled brightly next to the winner, the pretty Lee Ploughe, the lab’s nurse. Lee towered over her by nearly four inches, but Barbara’s spirits were soaring. Few women would be as happy coming in third as Barbara. Being singled out in the contest made her feel like a vital part of the lab. The beauty title held a deeper meaning for her. Her responsibilities at work were increasing, and her popularity in the contest cemented her role among the computers, where she was functioning more and more as a supervisor. Barbara held one of a dwindling number of Miss Guided Missile titles. The beauty contests wouldn’t end yet, but their name was about to change, reflecting a deeper transformation afoot.

  Barbara and Macie were the first of the computers to have a hint as to where their calculations were about to take them. Sitting in the cafeteria one day was a man whose work had long inspired both admiration and repulsion in the lab. They knew that this man, a Nazi war criminal, was about to take them on the ride of their lives.

  CHAPTER 5

  Holding Back

  The inky-black night seemed to seep out of the sky and bleed into the ocean. Barbara Lewis stood overlooking the beach in Santa Monica, watching the dark waves crest and fall. The breeze was cool, causing little shivers to run up her back despite the warmth of the June night. Barbara’s date, a man named Harry Paulson, gestured to the thin cotton wrap covering her shoulders and asked if she was cold. Barbara smiled and shook her head. The majestic coastline distracted her from the chilly air. Above, stars glimmered in the dusk while the surf and sand turned an indistinguishable gray in the dim light. She watched the beach stretch to the north, the lights of Malibu twinkling in the distance. “It’s so different at night,” Barbara remarked to Harry as his hand grazed her elbow.

  She had met him at the Pasadena Presbyterian Church, and although she was shy about accepting dates, she found him irresistible. He was tall, not quite handsome, but with a kind face and a calm demeanor. He made her laugh, and when she spoke, Barbara could tell he was completely present, listening to her words eagerly. She turned her head to take in the Santa Monica Pier ahead of them and watched the flashing lights of the Ferris wheel paint the ocean pink and red. After dinner they had strolled downtown, wandering aimlessly along the paved sidewalks until they reached the eroding sandstone bluffs. Now Barbara stood between the two worlds, one heel planted firmly on concrete while the other sank into the soft, sandy earth of the weathered ocean cliff. Her work at JPL was similarly shifting: she was standing on the solid ground of missile development while her toes dipped into the world of space exploration. She could see where they wer
e going as clearly as she could see the waves ahead.

  The first sign that their dreams of space were nearing fruition came in the JPL lunchroom. Barbara sat with Macie Roberts and watched as a tall, handsome man with wavy brown hair and blue eyes took a seat in the crowded commissary. Wernher von Braun was a legend, a superstar, and a former Nazi war criminal. Despite his notoriety, Barbara couldn’t help feeling sorry for him.

  Amid the camaraderie and noise of the lunchroom, von Braun looked lonely eating his lunch. He was one of the world’s preeminent rocket scientists. His articles and books on the intricate science of outer space, in which he imagined the first space station—complete with living quarters and a rocket-powered elevator—were so entertaining that Walt Disney used him as a consultant and later a star for his “Man in Space” films. As a photographer snapped his picture beside the creator of Mickey Mouse, it was hard to believe von Braun had once been America’s enemy.

  The computer girls passed back and forth a worn copy of Collier’s magazine, a page dog-eared over von Braun’s byline and the headline MAN WILL CONQUER SPACE SOON. Underlined was the sentence “Within the next 10 or 15 years, the earth will have a new companion in the skies, a man-made satellite that could be either the greatest force for peace ever devised, or one of the most terrible weapons of war—depending on who makes and controls it.” They relished his words. It all sounded fantastic and improbable, and yet here they were working on the satellite. His enthusiasm perfectly matched their own.