Similar to the movie
Hidden Figures, but going back to earlier decades, this book tells the story of the women who served as human computers to send the first satellites into space and plot the trajectories of various spacecraft by hand. A student of Caltech and his buddies who liked to experiment with rockets, known as the Suicide Squad, gained some funding and eventually the more dignified name of JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), along with a full staff of engineers and an all-female team of computers. For a while they stayed in business by serving the needs of the military, but their interest all along was space exploration, not weapons, and when NASA was created they were absorbed into it and were ultimately able to focus on their real dream. JPL was a unique opportunity for women who were accomplished mathematicians to put their skills to employable use, since their gender automatically excluded them from consideration for engineer positions. It's pretty crazy to read about a time before computers were readily available, and when the first ones took up entire rooms and operated clumsily. It is absolutely insane to think about the amount of math that was done by hand, and constantly redone whenever any launch or equipment details changed, to get these spacecraft up there. Honestly, it's still hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that we have figured out a way to get OFF THIS PLANET and learn anything about the ones nearest us, even though it's all very small real estate in the scheme of things. Space exploration was thrilling and fascinating then and it still is now, but there's a heck of a lot more technology to aid us today. Major props to those badass women! Why wasn't I taught about this in school?!
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