Rise of the Rocket Girls

by Nathalia Holt

  Barbara sometimes felt smothered by her mother’s expectations. She was single and in no hurry to settle down. Her family hoped she would find a husband soon, yet none was in sight. As Barbara came home at the end of the workday, her feet dragged on the walk that led to the front door. Once she was inside, her mother chided her before Barbara even hung up her hat: how did she expect to get married if she worked such long hours? Her sisters constantly tried to match her up. Even at church she couldn’t avoid the well-meaning comments and inevitable, awkward fix-ups. It seemed everyone had a son who would be perfect for her. Only at JPL was she free from this crushing weight. No one expected her to date at the lab; in fact, it was frowned upon. There was freedom in the work, as her success was measured in her calculations instead of in the number of marriage proposals accrued. And yet sometimes, lying in bed at night, all the fear of a lonely future rushed in on her. Should I be worried? she thought. Will I ever have a family of my own?

  Barbara felt little trepidation on that snowy January day as the computers, unable to stay inside, finally went out to make snow angels, build snowmen, and lob snowballs through the frosty air. The release was just what they needed, a welcome respite from plotting trajectories and from workdays that were lengthening, despite the waning light of winter, as they approached the next launch date.

  Over the next few days, as the snow melted, dotting the lab with muddy puddles, it also left clarity behind. Discussing the recent problems on the Bumper WAC with the engineers, computer Coralie Pearson recognized a discrepancy in their tests. The rocket trajectories they had spent a day calculating had assumed a full tank of propellant, but the launches were being performed with only a partial tank. A full tank gave an extra thirteen seconds of burning time. The engineers had initially dismissed the difference as unimportant, a mere matter of seconds, yet it was certainly affecting their calculations. Willing to try anything, the engineers agreed that the next round would have a full tank. Other changes were afoot. The nozzle of the Bumper WAC was covered with a shallow dish to keep air pressure constant while the rocket gained altitude.

  The staff at JPL were down to the last few launches scheduled for White Sands, and the pressure was on. At 1:15 a.m. Mountain time on February 24, 1949, the engineers and technicians began preparations. The technicians connected circuits and detonators, examined the O-rings, checked the weather, and began radio silence. At 7:15 a.m. the engineers were ready to fire the rocket. But the weather wasn’t cooperating. Clouds moved in. After being up all night, the group had to wait another seven hours for the skies to clear. The day was breezy, more so than they liked, but they decided to try anyway. At 3:14 p.m. the commander began the countdown: “Three, two, one, fire! Missile away!” The rocket rose steadily. Thirty seconds later the V-2 rocket detached. The little sister slipped away, its three jet-black fins exposed. With the extra boost, it raced faster, now reaching 5,150 miles per hour. The rocket left the atmosphere and speeded into space. It reached 242 miles above Earth. It was the greatest velocity and highest altitude any man-made object had ever achieved. The news was relayed to the group at JPL, which immediately erupted in cheers. Everyone hugged Coralie, who turned as red as a rocket’s nose cone at all the attention. Finally, Barbara thought, it feels like spring.

  As the rockets grew more successful, the team had to confront the reality of their ultimate use. While those at JPL were focused on piercing the limits of space and breaking barriers, the rockets they had just designed were destined to be loaded down with warheads. Their goal was not exploration but military might. Cocooned in their cozy academic setting, they could easily deny this basic fact. With the success of the Bumper WAC, Barbara realized for the first time what all this might mean. The realization made her anxious.

  Outside the lab, Barbara was careful not to talk about her work to anyone. The lab used a color-coding system to differentiate which employees had access to sensitive information. A red stripe running down an employee’s JPL badge meant their work was classified. Some employees, such as Barbara, also had a blue stripe across their badges. This meant their work was classified and secret. Barbara was careful to keep the file cabinets, holding the computers’ clandestine calculations, locked up at night.

  Given these restrictions, Barbara kept her professional and home lives separate. She didn’t discuss her work with her mom and sisters, and at church or out with friends, careers were rarely a topic of discussion among the women. Their importance was seen as marginal in comparison to their social lives. It was only among her fellow computers that she spoke freely.

  A red shadow had fallen across the United States, and fear of Communists infiltrating American institutions was rampant. As of 1949, when the USSR detonated First Lightning, its first atomic bomb, at a remote site in Kazakhstan, the United States no longer stood alone in nuclear technology. America was shocked at the speed with which the Soviets had been able to produce atomic weapons. Like most of her countrymen’s, Barbara’s blood ran cold at the news that American scientists with secret Communist ties had leaked information to the USSR.

  The hysteria grew. Stories of spies concealed in America’s laboratories dominated the headlines. JPL held meetings on the growing Soviet menace while the FBI pried into everyone’s past. Until then, Barbara hadn’t paid much attention to the news. She loved music on the radio but didn’t listen to newscasts. She liked going to the movies but rarely watched the newsreels. She almost never read the paper. Twenty-year-old girls weren’t expected to discuss politics or be knowledgeable concerning world events. Now, however, tensions on the world stage would directly affect her.

  The Red Scare was no longer simply a headline; it was destroying the lives of those she worked with. At JPL everyone knew one another, and they all knew Hsue-Shen Tsien, a founding member of the lab. He was an expert in V-2 rockets, his knowledge acquired during World War II. Originally from China, he came to America in 1935 to study at MIT. Like Frank Malina, JPL’s acting director, he’d received his PhD at Caltech, and almost immediately was attracted to the Suicide Squad. Though he was a quiet man, something about the audacious group drew him in. He’d been involved with JPL since its inception, playing a key role in its success before serving in the U.S. Army.

  It was in the army, while serving as an honorary colonel, that Tsien consulted for Operation Paperclip, which aimed to capture key Nazi scientists after the war before Russia could get hold of them. The United States was desperate to get their hands on Nazi rocket technology, whose sophistication far outstripped that of the Allies’. Tsien, an accomplished, well-respected rocket scientist, was a natural choice to interview the enemy scientists. When Wernher von Braun and Rudolf Hermann, both notorious for their expertise in rocketry, were captured, Tsien was one of the first to talk to them. Both Tsien and Frank had long been chasing the technology contained within the Nazi V-2 rocket. To finally learn its secrets was intoxicating. They couldn’t wait to bring both the technology and the Nazi scientists to America. Tsien dreamed of what JPL could do with such a rocket.

  Ironically, just when the promise of the V-2 rocket in America was starting to pay off and the two-stage Bumper WAC that Barbara and the team at JPL built was starting to fly, things began to fall apart for Tsien.

  In the clutches of McCarthyism, the FBI accused him of going to secret Communist meetings disguised as Caltech graduate-school parties. They found Communists among the shy young man’s friends. His Chinese origins intensified the government’s fears, especially since he had recently returned to the Caltech campus and was visiting JPL more frequently. Finally, in 1950, the government revoked his security clearance. He was banned from the very lab he had helped build.

  To many employees at JPL, the accusations were absurd, and yet, with new indictments popping up in labs across the nation, it seemed that spies lurked everywhere. Still, the majority of those at JPL believed Tsien was innocent. The subject was too sad to incite much gossip. Tsien was brilliant and well liked; the charges against him seem
ed impossible.

  For five years, Tsien and his family were held under house arrest before being deported to China. While he was forcibly ejected and labeled a traitor, the Nazi war criminals he helped bring to the States were being given more freedom and resources than ever before. In 1950, the same year that Tsien began house arrest, von Braun and his team of German scientists were arriving at the Redstone Arsenal, in Huntsville, Alabama, their importance in rocketry development recognized and encouraged.

  Back in his home country, Tsien’s contributions to China’s space program would earn him the title Father of Chinese Rocketry. It’s tempting to imagine what innovations he might have brought to the U.S. space program had he stayed. While government reports, made as late as 1999, have continued to denounce Tsien as a spy, these accusations have never been substantiated.

  Frank, the director and founder of the lab, was another casualty of the Red Scare. Unlike Tsien, he had openly attended Communist meetings in the late 1930s before renouncing the party in 1939. He wasn’t a Communist, but his politics weren’t easily defined. His liberal leanings bristled against the current political climate. The growing tide of paranoia about Communist scientists and his own moral uncertainty about developing weaponry led him to leave both JPL and rocketry forever. It was hard for the computers to watch Frank, the heart and soul of the lab, depart. Yet they knew that his sensitive nature made him too fragile to stay. Retreating from rocketry, he would embrace his artistic nature, creating kinetic paintings that interwove his dual passions of science and art.

  On a spring afternoon in 1955, the same year that Tsien was deported to China and Frank was opening a show of kinetic art at a gallery in Paris, Barbara and her friends signed their names on the white-painted metal of the hundredth Corporal built at JPL. It was a momentous occasion, celebrating the decade the team at JPL had spent optimizing the weaponry, the result of a painfully long string of failures. They relaxed as they watched the missile, emblazoned with their signatures, dismembered and loaded onto a convoy of trucks. The Corporal needed a vast amount of support equipment: a massive air compressor, air supply, platform, and launcher. The cranes swayed as they lifted the cumbersome equipment. The erector, designed to raise the missile into position, was still painted a cheery red color, a reminder of its previous life at an apple orchard. Two separate tankers filled with highly explosive liquid fuel, their formula the result of years of research, followed. The missile itself was packed into a giant shipping container. Altogether, the convoy stretched sixteen miles. It looked like a battalion headed to war.

  The sun was low in the sky, casting long shadows that danced across the lawn. Some of the women waved as they watched the trucks leave the gate and head for the desert. Sadness rose up in Barbara; it felt like a child was leaving home. The engineers and computers sat on chairs and drank champagne until the sky turned pink. The celebration was gay but hushed. They confidently expected success, but past disasters had taught them to not celebrate too soon.

  One week later a dozen technicians and engineers eased the rocket covered in their signatures onto the launchpad at White Sands and began the countdown. Then, with a single press of a button and the command “Missile away!” they fired. The rocket rose slowly at first, and then suddenly took a nosedive into the desert brush before exploding. Flames consumed it while giant black clouds of smoke filled the air. When they put out the fire they found only unrecognizable fragments. Despite its being the hundredth Corporal built, the engineers had no idea what had gone wrong. For now, their signatures were scattered across the New Mexico desert.

  The Corporal missile depicted earlier containing Barbara and her colleagues’ signatures, now smashed across the White Sands landscape, 1955 (Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech)

  It seemed JPL was fated to wrestle with its weaponry even as those at the lab began to envision a future without it. They would embark on this journey without their founder. Much to his dismay, Frank would have to watch from afar as JPL’s dream of exploring space slowly came true. He would never get to experience the thrill of adapting his technology to probe the limits of the universe. But Barbara Lewis would. First, however, she would become a beauty queen.

  CHAPTER 4

  Miss Guided Missile

  Barbara Lewis carefully unfurled the curlers from her thick, dark hair. The big night was finally here. Tonight she would laugh, dance, and perhaps even take the crown at JPL’s Miss Guided Missile contest. She delicately ran her fingers through the curls to loosen them before pulling back the strands closest to her face and securing them with a black velvet ribbon. She felt optimistic about her chances at the beauty contest tonight, but not because she thought herself prettier than the other girls competing. The Miss Guided Missile contest was barely a beauty contest in her eyes. The winner was chosen based on her popularity more than her trim figure and crinkly crinoline dress. Every spring, a girl from each department would sign up for consideration, with voting open to all. Mindful of this, Barbara had used her wiles to sway her colleagues. She wasn’t particularly handy in the kitchen, but she baked three batches of chocolate chip cookies, filling a small basket with the treats. Armed with her cookies, Barbara walked around the lab, handing them out with a smile, openly calling them a bribe and cheerfully declaring, “Vote for Barbara!”

  Before the voting commenced, however, Barbara’s co-workers hoisted her atop a convertible and drove around the lab. With the wind blowing through her hair, she smiled and waved. She felt a little silly and laughed nervously. Barbara might not be the prettiest girl in the lab, but she was sociable and easy to work with. All the computers were rooting for her. She imagined the director of the institute crowning her at the summer dance. Yet she didn’t dwell on her possible victory, since it was merely a lighthearted affair. No one took it too seriously. Barbara, representing the computing section, was competing against Lois Labee, a chemist, and Margaret Anderson, who worked in the research design division. They were all young, beautiful, and very good at their demanding jobs. As odd as it seems by today’s standards, the beauty contest was a result of JPL’s progressive hiring practices. As the bouquets were handed out and an attractive woman crowned the winner, the competition was unintentionally highlighting the presence of educated young women working at JPL. After all, other laboratories would have found it impossible to hold such a contest in the 1950s; they simply didn’t hire enough women.

  Barbara put on a modest shirtdress, the hem skimming her calves. It was black with tiny white polka dots, and she’d purchased it especially for the occasion. She buttoned the collar down conservatively but then, as a nod to her femininity, cinched the belt at her waist, showing off her slim figure. She pulled on her stockings and gave her new shoes an admiring glance before slipping them on. The black satin peep-toe heels were the latest fashion. A little dark red lipstick and she was ready to go. She twirled happily in front of the mirror before going downstairs to show off to her mother and sisters.

  The computer room was starting to burst at the seams with new girls coming in. JPL had a new army contract, and Macie Roberts had been searching for as many qualified young women as she could. Between 1950 and 1953, JPL’s annual budget had doubled, from roughly $5 million to $11 million. The work was doubling too, and yet management was hesitant about expanding. The lab had always enjoyed an intimate feel; they didn’t want to destroy the culture they had built. With this in mind, Macie was careful to recruit only women she thought would work well with her team.

  When Janez Lawson applied, she was obviously a perfect fit. She was graduating from the prestigious University of California at Los Angeles with a degree in chemical engineering. Janez, born and raised in Los Angeles, came from an affluent family. Her mother and father tried to give her and her younger sister the riches they had only dreamed of growing up. But her parents’ success didn’t stop Janez from working hard at school. She loved chemistry and math. Although she was usually the only girl in her classes, she pursued science with a single-minded de
termination. Not that she was just a bookworm. With her good looks and bubbly personality, Janez was destined to always be the most popular girl in her class.

  At UCLA she joined the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, which recognized her achievements by awarding her a scholarship. The group provided the perfect counterpoint to the long hours she spent studying. Janez sometimes slipped away from the library to relax at the beach with her friends or help plan the annual White Christmas formal. With her sorority sisters she was fun and silly, while in the classroom she turned serious. Her senior year marked the culmination of her happy student years. Her sorority sisters elected her president of Delta Sigma Theta, and she was about to graduate with honors. As her college years came to a close, she started researching her job options, but she had no expectation that she’d ever be able to re-create the joyful mix of camaraderie and science.

  One day, Janez stood in front of the job board at UCLA and examined her choices. Although she was an engineering major, she barely glanced at a job posting from Douglas Aircraft Company calling for engineers. She already knew that she was excluded from their elite, almost exclusively male ranks. Sandwiched between appeals for sheet metal men and stenographers, an advertisement from Caltech caught her attention. COMPUTERS URGENTLY NEEDED it said in large block letters across the top of the page. In smaller type below, the job description read: Computers do not need advanced experience or degrees but should have an aptitude and interest in mathematics and computing machines. In a sea of available jobs, this one stood out. It was distinct in offering a professional job in mathematics at a premier academic institute. The fact that the job didn’t require a degree was code, signaling to Janez that it was open to women. For a woman wanting to become an engineer, taking a job as a computer was like entering the field through a secret back door.