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

by George D. Morgan, Ashley Stroupe, PHD, Phd (Foreword by)

Overview

This is the extraordinary true story of America's first female rocket scientist. Told by her son, it describes Mary Sherman Morgan's crucial contribution to launching America's first satellite and the author's labyrinthine journey to uncover his mother's lost legacy--one buried deep under a lifetime of secrets political, technological, and personal. In 1938, a young German rocket enthusiast named Wernher von Braun had dreams of building a rocket that could fly him to the moon. In Ray, North Dakota, a young farm girl named Mary Sherman was attending high school. In an age when girls rarely dreamed of a career in science, Mary wanted to be a chemist. A decade later the dreams of these two disparate individuals would coalesce in ways neither could have imagined. World War II and the Cold War space race with the Russians changed the fates of both von Braun and Mary Sherman Morgan. When von Braun and other top engineers could not find a solution to the repeated failures that plagued the nascent US rocket program, North American Aviation, where Sherman Morgan then worked, was given the challenge. Recognizing her talent for chemistry, company management turned the assignment over to young Mary.In the end, America succeeded in launching rockets into space, but only because of the joint efforts of the brilliant farm girl from North Dakota and the famous German scientist. While von Braun went on to become a high-profile figure in NASA's manned space flight, Mary Sherman Morgan and her contributions fell into obscurity--until now.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781616147396
Publisher:	Prometheus Books
Publication date:	07/09/2013
Pages:	334
Sales rank:	695,254
Product dimensions:	6.24(w) x 8.86(h) x 0.74(d)

About the Author

George D. Morgan (Santa Paula, CA) is the Playwright in Residence at the California Institute of Technology. He has written more than a dozen stage plays and musicals, including Second to Die, Nevada Belle, and Thunder in the Valley. He is the son of Mary Sherman Morgan, America's first female rocket scientist.

Table of Contents

Foreword Ashley Stroupe 7

Chapter 1 This Is a Story 11

Chapter 2 Prairie Girl 17

Chapter 3 The Raketenflugplatz 25

Chapter 4 The ABC's of Milking Cows 29

Chapter 5 I Have No Idea What You're Talking About 35

Chapter 6 "Mother Does Not Abide Photography" 43

Chapter 7 The Great Escape 67

Chapter 8 A Little of This, a Little of That 79

Chapter 9 An Odd Number 95

Chapter 10 Hidden Fortress 111

Chapter 11 A New Kind of War 131

Chapter 12 Whitewashed in White Sands 145

Chapter 13 Alias Chief Designer 151

Chapter 14 Red 161

Chapter 15 Politics, Philosophy, Television, and Cush' Sobash'ya 167

Chapter 16 Your Very Best Man 171

Chapter 17 Welcome to the Monkey Cage 185

Chapter 18 The Mysterious Unknown Propellant Project 199

Chapter 19 Smoke and Fire 221

Chapter 20 Don't Drink the Rocket Fuel 237

Chapter 21 Pusk! 247

Chapter 22 The Dutchman Cometh 253

Chapter 23 310 at 1.75 and 0.8615 for 155 263

Chapter 24 The Law of Unintended Consequences 267

Chapter 25 Satellite without a Name 273

Chapter 26 Wings of the Condor 283

Author's Note 295

Acknowledgments 297

Notes 299

Index 311

Editorial Reviews

Playwright George Morgan (Second to Die) knew that his mother, Mary Sherman Morgan, had done important work as a rocket scientist for the U.S. during the Cold War, but it wasn’t until her funeral in 2004 that he began to understand the extent of her contributions. At the service, a man who had worked with Mary told George that she had “single-handedly saved America’s space program... and nobody knows it but a handful of old men.” In addition to being a very private person, Mary was further constrained by the top-secret status of her projects. She kept such a low profile that when famed German scientist Wernher von Braun wrote to her, he addressed the letter to a “Dear Unknown Lady.” In the early 1950s, Morgan—with only a high school diploma—was the sole female analyst among 900 rocket scientists at North American Aviation. If it weren’t for her invention of the propellant hydyne, America’s first satellite would’ve never made it off the ground. Based on a play of the same name that Morgan put on in 2008, this portrait of a mother shrouded in mystery and largely forgotten by the field she pioneered is a compelling read, though folks looking for a more objective biography might be put off by Morgan’s dramatic flourishes and the lack of critical distance between author and subject. Agent: Deborah Ritchken, the Marsal Lyon Literary Agency. (July)

Publishers Weekly

""A dramatic, suspenseful tale.” —SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN “Illuminates the exploits of an unsung heroine of the space age.” —Preston Lerner, author and journalist   “A beautiful story well told. Mary Sherman Morgan, a woman who toiled in obscurity and liked it that way, rises from a dirt-poor and abusive childhood to break the gender barrier in rocket engineering. She goes on to solve the last remaining problem keeping America from the stars. Mary’s contribution... would have forever vanished were it not for this book. An inspiration for women—and men—everywhere.” —Rod L. Pyle, Author of Destination Mars   “This portrait of a mother shrouded in mystery and largely forgotten by the field she pioneered is a compelling read.” —Publishers Weekly   “An intriguing biography.... The personal story and family detective work are truly gripping, and Mary, in all her contradictions, emerges as a fascinating subject.” —Booklist   “An accessible and enjoyable read.... [It reminds] us of the need to adequately record and credit the contributions of women scientists, like Morgan, to obtain the fullest account in our history-of-science collections. Recommended.” —Library Journal   “A sweeping yet intensely personal book.... [It] takes us from the windswept prairies of North Dakota, where Mary Sherman was born, to the equally windswept steppes of Kazakhstan from which Sergei Korolev would launch Sputnik..., putting the United States on a crash course to catch up. [The] race between Korolev and his American  rival, ex-Nazi rocketeer Wernher von Braun is deftly interwoven with the daily lives of the unknown engineers [like Mary] who made it possible.” —Douglas L. Smith, legacy content producer, California Institute of Technology “An interesting book that sheds light on a little-known person who played a key role in the early days of the space age, one that should be more prominent given how few women were involved in aerospace at the time.” —The Space Review

From the Publisher

Read Rocket Girl for a fascinating insight into an untold tale of a heroine of the early Space Age. This story would make a great film adaption, along the lines of October Sky... great stories deserve to be told! --July 12, 2013

Astro Guyz

George D. Morgan is a clear-eyed, compassionate biographer of his mother and brings the science and military-industrial complex of the space-race era to life. --July 18, 2013

Slate

Fascinating ...Compelling...The book is highly readable and could be used in a variety of ways.... A wonderful resource for any science teacher looking for a new opportunity to spur their students' interest in the history of science and the challenges that women have faced in doing the work of science. --July 16, 2013

NSTA Recommends

The choice of a man to narrate the biography of a woman could have been awkward, but in this case it’s entirely appropriate. This portrait of Mary Sherman Morgan, America’s first female rocket scientist, is written by her son. The third-person narrative is interlaced with first-person reflections and anecdotes. Joe Barrett offers a solid reading. Listeners will easily come to think of his voice as that of the author. He offers hints of accents in some of the quotes, including a Scandinavian-North Dakota intonation for Mary. While Mary Morgan was involved in highly technical work, the book covers it in easy-to-follow terms that facilitate listening. Overall, the audiobook is structured like a detective story, with the author as the sleuth, in this case uncovering his mother’s classified career. This framework also enhances the audio experience. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

SEPTEMBER 2017 - AudioFile