Darkside

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.

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 achieve-

ment, as we had all of four members, but the point is,

I lived and breathed rocketry. Almost literally. The smell

of spent motor casings still triggers Proustian memory,

taking me back to farm fields and car batteries sparking

and aerodynamics into October skies.

Photography courtesy of NASA/JPL/Caltech

Estes motors to life, lofting our latest affront to gravity

>>

94 Make: Volume 13