Make: Technology on Your Time Volume 13

Maker

MATINEE SCIENTIST: The mysterious John “Jack” Parsons (1914-1952), the rocketeer who dressed more like a matinee idol than a scientist, and who’s been called the James Dean of American rocketry. Here seen posing with one of his JATO motors in his beloved Arroyo Seco, the wild landscape outside Pasadena, Calif., where he played as a child, where he and his colleagues helped launch the American space program, and where JPL stands today.

Darkside Rocketeer

Jack Parsons, the space pioneer history likes to forget.

By Gareth Branwyn

When I was 12, I was vice president of the Chester Virginia Rocketry Society — no great political achievement, as we had all of four members, but the point is, I lived and breathed rocketry. Almost literally. The ...