Astro Turf
The Private Life of Rocket Science
by M.G.Lord, 2005 During the cold war, an engineer worked on the small parts of rocket ships. Years after his death, his daughter decided to investigate California's Jet Propulsion Lab, where he had worked. Her investigative journey brings her to many figures who remind her of her own politics, which she spends an inordinate number of pages ranting about. One of JPL's founders was persecuted by the FBI for his alleged communist leanings, and so Lord talks about how awful the FBI is and this reminds her of Operation Paperclip, in which the FBI expunged Nazi records. Nazis remind her of the oppression of women, as does just about everything, and so she talks about the atmosphere towards women in JPL, past and present. With the oppression of women still on her mind as she talks about the funding of rocket science and current launches, Lord depicts everything as either feminine or masculine. I got lost in Lord's description of lift-off as birth, with an umbilical cord and masculine and feminine aspects. For those who need a
more positive spin.
Wary reading.
