Astro Turf: The Private Life of Rocket Science.

ASTRO TURF: The Private Life of Rocket Science M.G. LORD

This is the story of a rocket laboratory, the world-renowned Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) from a personal perspective. In this memoir, Lord examines the professional lives of a few of the scientists and engineers responsible for the United States' successes in space during the 1960s and 1970s: men with intense focus, keen rationality, and limited emotions. The story begins with an intimate narrative of Lord's relationship with her father, Charles Lord, a rocket engineer. She recalls how his obsession with work and detachment from home life, especially during her mother's illness with cancer, were both saddening and fascinating. The author concludes that her father simply acted in accordance with the expectations of his profession and gender. JPL was a microcosm of the United States immediately after World War II, reflecting attitudes about gender roles, race, and communism. One of JPL's cofounders, Frank Malina, fled the lab and the country under a McCarthy-era probe into his communist ties. Only decades later was he recognized for his contributions to JPL and to rocket science overall. Changes in the world inevitably led to changes at the lab: increased hiring of women, improved working conditions for employees with families, and greater acceptance of homosexual partnerships. Lord gives the reader an honest look into how the mores of her father's time and their evolution affected her relationship with him, her personal growth, and the backstage story of a rocket lab. Walker, 2005, 259 13., b&w photos, hardcover, $24.00.