The true story about the women of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory who helped launch the first satellites and later rockets that explored the outer reaches of our solar system and beyond.
Before there were machines called “computers,” there were human “computers.” I never realized before that the name computer originated as a person who computes things.
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, or JPL as it is often called, was found in 1936 when a group of Caltech graduate students teamed up with some amateur rocket scientists began experimenting with rocket motors.
While the engineers were all men, JPL only hired women as computers. The women did all the calculations with just pencil and paper.
Nathalia Holt does an incredible job telling the story of these women and the pivotal roles they played in sending rockets into space, to the moon, and beyond. You will share in their joy, success, failures, and heartache.
Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars
The book is 384 pages and the audio book is 9:45.
