How NASA's 'rocket girls' shaped space exploration

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Podcasts Take Two

Jun 20, 2016

How NASA's 'rocket girls' shaped space exploration

In the 1940s and 1950s, a few mathematically gifted women performed an unusual job – they completed complicated calculations for NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab.

The "rocket girls" of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory

In the 1940s and 1950s, a few mathematically gifted women performed an unusual job – they completed complicated calculations for NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab.

When you think of the earliest rocket scientists you may imagine MEN with crew cuts and pocket protectors plotting satellite trajectories in smoke-filled rooms.

Yet some of the earliest number-crunchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena were highly skilled women who served as "human computers."

A new book tells their story. Nathalia Holt is the author of Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars. She joined Take Two with more

Audio to follow later today