America’s First Female Rocket Scientist
Mary Sherman Morgan grew up in a poor farming household in North Dakota and didn’t attend school until she was nine years old. In an age where girls rarely dreamed of a career in science, she wanted to be a chemist. She eventually attended college, but did not get a degree. But she was a whiz at what she did, which was making explosives. In 1957, she invented the liquid fuel Hydyne, which powered the Jupiter-C rocket that boosted America’s first satellite, Explorer I. Her role was little known even in the aerospace industry. She is an overlooked heroine of this country’s space program – in part overshadowed by the reputation of Werner von Braun, and in part due to her own reticence to claim the limelight.
The outbreak of WW II meant a shortage of chemists and other scientists. Young Mary Sherman was offered a job at a factory in Ohio; it turned out to be at the Plum Brook Ordinance Works munitions factory, charged with manufacturing explosives. After the war, she was employed in the Rocketdyne Division of North American Aviation in California, where she was promoted to the job of Theoretical Performance Specialist. Out of 900 engineers, she was the only woman, and one of only a few without a college degree. There she met her future husband, George Richard Morgan.
During the Space age, the US wanted to launch rockets into space, but its fuel wasn’t efficient enough. North American Aviation was tasked with the challenge of finding a more powerful fuel. Who better to assign the task than Mary Sherman Morgan, the in-house rocket propellant expert recognized for her talent in chemistry? Her work resulted in the birth of a new propellant. The first Hydyne-powered Redstone R&D flight book place on November 29, 1956. Hydyne subsequently powered three Jupiter C nose cone test flights.
The Soviet Union launched its first two Sputnik satellites in the fall of 1957, a source of embarrassment for the US, whose Vanguard rocket had exploded in space. Despite his Nazi past, the former German rocket scientist Werner von Braun was brought on board to prepare the Jupiter C rocket for an orbital flight. However, his team was only able to get the propellant 93% of the way into orbit. Enter Morgan, with her reputation for complex theoretical calculations. America’s first satellite was launched into orbit on January 31, 1958, helping to salvage the country’s credibility in science and engineering. Most of the credit goes to von Braun, but his rocket never would have launched without her fuel.
Morgan retired to raise a family of four and rarely spoke of her previous life as a scientist. But after her death from COPD in 2004, her son George was determined to unearth her legacy. In 2008, he wrote a stage play based on her life that was produced by Cal Tech’s Theater Arts program. In 2013, the play was turned into a book entitled “Rocket Girl: The story of Mary Sherman Morgan, America’s First Female Rocket Scientist.” Many publications have since spotlighted her achievements.
