Apr 17, 2016 02:18 AM
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-na...180958791/
EXCERPT: It’s rare that a scientist’s name becomes a household one, no matter how great his or her discovery is. And yet, a handful of brilliant American innovators in rocket science still enjoy name recognition: Werner Von Braun, Homer Hickman, Robert Goddard, among them. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is where many of the brightest rocket scientists collaborated on the early achievements of the space program, and JPL’s website is quick to hail the men behind the missions. Even lesser-known figures, such as Frank Malina, Jack Parsons and Ed Forman, who founded the lab in the 1930s, are remembered fondly as “rocket boys” and “rocketmen.” What’s missing from an otherwise detailed history online, however, is major part of the story: the rocket girls.
When biologist and science writer Nathalia Holt stumbled, serendipitously, upon the story of one of NASA’s first female employees, she was stunned to realize that there was a trove of women’s stories from the early days of NASA that had been lost to history. Not even the agency itself was able to identify female staffers in their own archival photographs. 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.
Holt took on the cause and was ultimately able to find a group of women whose work in rocket science dates back to before NASA even existed. In her new book "Rise of the Rocket Girls," Holt documents the lives of these women, who were not only pioneers in their profession, but also in their personal lives. The “rocket girls” worked outside of the home when only 20 percent of women did so, had children and returned to work, went through divorce when it was first becoming socially accepted, and witnessed the first wave of feminism, not to mention other social revolutions in the decades that spanned their careers. Holt spoke to Smithsonian about discovering this lost chapter of history, the choices she made in how to tell their stories, and the state of women in the sciences today....
EXCERPT: It’s rare that a scientist’s name becomes a household one, no matter how great his or her discovery is. And yet, a handful of brilliant American innovators in rocket science still enjoy name recognition: Werner Von Braun, Homer Hickman, Robert Goddard, among them. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is where many of the brightest rocket scientists collaborated on the early achievements of the space program, and JPL’s website is quick to hail the men behind the missions. Even lesser-known figures, such as Frank Malina, Jack Parsons and Ed Forman, who founded the lab in the 1930s, are remembered fondly as “rocket boys” and “rocketmen.” What’s missing from an otherwise detailed history online, however, is major part of the story: the rocket girls.
When biologist and science writer Nathalia Holt stumbled, serendipitously, upon the story of one of NASA’s first female employees, she was stunned to realize that there was a trove of women’s stories from the early days of NASA that had been lost to history. Not even the agency itself was able to identify female staffers in their own archival photographs. 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.
Holt took on the cause and was ultimately able to find a group of women whose work in rocket science dates back to before NASA even existed. In her new book "Rise of the Rocket Girls," Holt documents the lives of these women, who were not only pioneers in their profession, but also in their personal lives. The “rocket girls” worked outside of the home when only 20 percent of women did so, had children and returned to work, went through divorce when it was first becoming socially accepted, and witnessed the first wave of feminism, not to mention other social revolutions in the decades that spanned their careers. Holt spoke to Smithsonian about discovering this lost chapter of history, the choices she made in how to tell their stories, and the state of women in the sciences today....