About this item
AN UNSUNG HEROINE OF THE SPACE AGE - HER STORY FINALLY TOLD. This is the extraordinary true story of America's first female rocket scientist. Told by her son, it describes Mary Sherman Morgan's crucial contribution to launching America's first satellite and the author's labyrinthine journey to uncover his mother's lost legacy--one buried deep under a lifetime of secrets political, technological, and personal. In 1938, a young German rocket enthusiast named Wernher von Braun had dreams of building a rocket that could fly him to the moon. In Ray, North Dakota, a young farm girl named Mary Sherman was attending high school. In an age when girls rarely dreamed of a career in science, Mary wanted to be a chemist. A decade later the dreams of these two disparate individuals would coalesce in ways neither could have imagined. World War II and the Cold War space race with the Russians changed the fates of both von Braun and Mary Sherman Morgan. When von Braun and other top engineers could not find a solution to the repeated failures that plagued the nascent US rocket program, North American Aviation, where Sherman Morgan then worked, was given the challenge. Recognizing her talent for chemistry, company management turned the assignment over to young Mary. In the end, America succeeded in launching rockets into space, but only because of the joint efforts of the brilliant farm girl from North Dakota and the famous German scientist. While von Braun went on to become a high-profile figure in NASA's manned space flight, Mary Sherman Morgan and her contributions fell into obscurity--until now.
About the Author
George D. Morgan has a BA in Creative Writing from California State University Channel Islands and an MFA in Writing for the Performing Arts through the University of California, Riverside, Palm Desert Writing Program. George has written more than a dozen stage plays and musicals including Second To Die, Nevada Belle, and Thunder in the Valley. He also wrote the score for the children's musical The Trial of Goldi Locks. In 2001 his play Second To Die was adapted into a film starring Paul Winfield and Erika Eleniak. George's screenplay Short Line won first place in the 2007 International Family Film Festival screenwriting contest. George is currently the Playwright in Residence at Caltech. His play Rocket Girl, the first in a trilogy of science-themed plays he is writing for the university, premiered in November, 2008. A book on the same subject was published in July, 2013 by Prometheus Books: Rocket Girl: The Story of Mary Sherman Morgan, America's First Female Rocket Scientist. The second play in the science trilogy, Pasadena Babalon, premiered February, 2010, and was a semi-finalist in the Sundance Institute's Alfred P. Sloan science playwriting contest. The third play now in development, Capture The Sun, relates the story of the Pons/Fleischmann cold fusion controversy of 1989. A life-long keyboardist, George teaches music for improv theatre groups around the country. He has just completed two novels, Moon Hunter (available on Amazon) and The Hamlet Syndrome. He is an active member of both the Dramatists Guild and the Writers Guild of America. His personal web site can be found at www.georgedmorgan.com.George and his wife Lisa live in Santa Paula, California with their three recently-adopted children.
