Strange Angel (45 page)

“any attempt on his leadership was doomed to failure.” Starr,
The Unknown God
, 113.

“propound his religion of Thelema across the world.” The
A:. A:,
stressed individual magic attainment on a personal basis rather than among a group. It existed side by side with the OTO; thus, becoming a member in the OTO often meant becoming a member in the A∴ A∴

“persistent use of drugs.” Booth, A
Magick Life,
435–6.

“frigged her for human kindness' sake.” Aleister Crowley, personal diary, 1 August 1940, YORKE.

“bankrupting him still further.” Martin Starr,
The Unknown God,
77.

“no hope, no bloody nothing.” Crowley, personal diary, 5 September 1943.

“it will clutch at a straw.” Aleister Crowley, letter to Wilfred T. Smith, 6 August 1931, YORKE.

“new age in religion.” Sydney Ahlstrom,
A Religious History of the American People
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972) 1026.

“perfect voice and perfect speaking.” Malinda Carter, “Christ Method of Healing or Thought-Transference—Which?”
Harmony
No. 12 (May 1900) 237.

“good and the true.” John W. Parsons, letter to Aleister Crowley, 26 November 1943, STARR.

“
The Waste Land
resounds with its ideas.” See John B. Vickery,
The Literary Impact of “The Golden Bough
“ (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973).

“a mistaken association of ideas.” Sir James George Frazer,
The Golden Bough—A Study in Magic and Religion
(New York: Macmillan, 1942) 49–50.

“the swarming maggots of near-occultists.” Crowley,
The Confessions of Aleister Crowley,
771.

“handed to you on a tray.” Aleister Crowley, letter to Wilfred Smith, 6 June 1928, OTO.

“We are gradually building up a mailing list.” Wilfred Smith, letter to Aleister Crowley, April 1934, OTO.

“captains of industry.” Aleister Crowley to Wilfred Smith, 6 August 1931, OTO.

“communists and pacifists, or both.” Wilfred Smith to Aleister Crowley, 6 May 1935, OTO.

“attractive male aspirants, joining in at times.” As well as his numerous affairs with women later in life, it seems possible that Parsons might also have experimented with homosexuality. Although he would speak later in life of “his repressed homosexual component,” little evidence could be found to support this point. Paul Mathison, a friend of Parsons' second wife, would claim to have had a brief relationship with Parsons in the early 1950s. However his testimony has been met with extreme skepticism by others who knew both him and Parsons during the period.

“the contrapuntal themes he was asked to play.” Timmons,
The Trouble with Harry Hay,
76.

“the official announcer of the city's annual Tournament of Roses.” Starr,
The Unknown God,
251.

“Parsons visiting only once more that year.” Ibid., 258.

“to correlate with the work of the ‘quantum' field folks.” Seckler,
In the Continuum,
III.7, 40.

“delayed for a while.” Wilfred Smith, letter to Aleister Crowley, 20 June 1939, OTO.

 

7: BRAVE NEW WORLD

“What seems utterly impossible today may be commonplace tomorrow.” Sam Moskowitz,
The Immortal Storm: A History of Science Fiction Fandom
(Westport, Conn.: Hyperion, 1974) 220.

“along democratic, impersonal, and unselfish lines.” John Bristol,
Fancyclopedia
(Los Angeles: F. J. Ackerman, 1944) 74.

“a moment of immortal sadness.” Ackerman, author interview.

“be paid for doing our rocket research.” Frank Malina,
The U.S. Army Air Corps Jet Propulsion Research Project, GALCIT Project No. 1, 1939–46: A Memoir,
in
Essays on the History of Rocketry and Astronautics: Proceedings of the Third Through Sixth History Symposia of the International Academy of Astronautics,
R. Cargill Hall, ed. (Washington: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1977).

“afford smoking ready-rolled cigarettes.” Malina,
Letters,
13 March 1939.

“unnerving explosions.” Kármán,
The Wind and Beyond,
242.

“such a thing as rockets.” Ibid., 243.

“had a mission to perform.” Malina, oral history interview by Wilson.

“they hadn't gone to university.” Jeanne Forman, interview by Brad Branson, 15 July 1995, JPL.

“in the worst sense of the word.” Malina,
Letters,
7 April 1940.

“staff members for the night.” Ibid., 21 October 1939.

“gas tight union.” Frank Malina, John Parsons, Edward Forman,
Air Corps Jet Propulsion Research, GALCIT Project No. 1, Report No. 3, Final Report for 1939–40, June 15, 1940,
JPL. For a fuller discussion of the GALCIT Project's rocketry work see Benjamin S. Zibit,
The Guggenheim Aeronautics Laboratory at Caltech and the Creation of the Modern Rocket Motor (1936–1946): How the Dynamics of Rocket Theory Became Reality
(unpublished dissertation, City University of New York, 1999), JPL.

“The Crucible of Power.”
Astounding Science Fiction
(February 1939).

“dizzy from instructions.” Malina,
Letters,
14 August 1939.

“People will get used to it.” Ibid., 20 October 1939.

“too early for Parsons and Forman.” Ibid., 21 August 1939.

“we will tell Parsons to keep on trying.” Kármán,
The Wind and Beyond,
245.

“burning would remain a stable process.” Zibit,
The Guggenheim Aeronautics Laboratory,
343.

“Tho the road is long and dreary.” John Whiteside Parsons, untitled poem, September 1940, STARR.

“No serious damage, just about a week's worth of repair.” Malina,
Letters,
4 February 1940.

“the group was jubilant.” Kármán,
The Wind and Beyond,
246.

“spies under every piece of paper.” Malina,
Letters,
3 September 1940.

“This isn't the type of problem.” Ibid., 20 August 1940.

“an awful lot of time together.” Malina, oral history interview by Wilson.

“Malina could be found poring over.” Ibid.

“I just couldn't take seriously.” Ibid.

“I have set my eyes on high.” John Whiteside Parsons, letter to Helen Parsons, 26 March 1943, STARR.

“like a costume party.” Liljan Wunderman, interview by Benjamin Zibit, 22 April 1996, JPL.

“I have to tell Frank about this.” Liljan Wunderman, author interview. “Darker Than You Think.”

“Darker Than You Think” appeared in
Unknown
(December 1940).

“at least with skeptics.” Jack Williamson, author interview.

“Satan was not invoked.” Jack Williamson,
Wonder's Child: My Life in Science Fiction
(New York, N.Y.: Bluejay Books, 1984) 128.

“fancy Russian cigarettes.” Grady McMurtry, letter to Parsons, 8 May 1943, OTO.

“talked about rockets, witchcraft.” Grady McMurtry, personal diary, OTO.

“JP is going to be very valuable.” Wilfred Smith, letter to Crowley, 21 March 1941, OTO.

“attainment as a matter of fact.” Jane Wolfe, letter to Karl Germer, 8 April 1941, OTO.

“don't pay attention to him.” Liljan Wunderman, author interview.

“it is nice to have one now.” John Whiteside Parsons, letter to Wilfred T. Smith, 3 May 1942, STARR.

 

8: ZENITH

“who came closest without hitting won.” Homer J. Stewart, interview by Susan Pile and Brad Branson, n.d, ADASTRA.

“nothing was impossible.” Jeanne Ottinger, author interview, 5 April 2004.

“they were crazy, what could you do?” Apollo Smith, oral history interview.

“Le Page's all-purpose stationery glue.” Homer A. Boushey,
A Brief History of the First US JATO Flight Tests of August 1941: A Memoir,
in History of Rocketry and Astronautics. IAA Simposia. Vol. 8. AAS History Series. Vol. 14. (San Diego, Calif.: Univelt, 1993).

“anyone who could drive a car could fly it.” Ibid. After the war the Ercoupe would become one of the most popular privately owned airplanes. Its lack of control pedals caused the creation of a new type of pilot's license and it could be found on sale in such unlikely places as the menswear section of Macy's department store.

“It couldn't have been any worse.” Kârmân,
The Wind and Beyond,
249.

“The phase of research that was supposed to be solved.” Malina,
Letters,
16 July 1941.

“Well at least it isn't a big hole.” Kârmân,
The Wind and Beyond,
250.

“A Super-8 film made of the tests.” Film courtesy of JPL/ADASTRA.

“None of us had ever seen a plane climb.” Kârmân,
The Wind and Beyond
, 250. It was not, however, the world's first rocket-assisted flight. Fritz von Opel, the son of the German automobile pioneer, claimed to have made a rocket-boosted glider flight in 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany, and the Russians had also independently achieved rocket-assisted glider flight in 1940.

“an increase of 56 percent.” Frank Malina and John Parsons,
Results of Flight Tests of the Ercoupe Airplane with Auxiliary Jet Propulsion Supplied by Solid Propellant Jet Units,
Galcit Project No. 1, Report No. 9, JPL.

“pulled out of the shoulder socket.” Boushey,
A Memoir.

“an airplane without a prop.” Fred Miller,
First JATO: Ammonium Nitrate, Constarch, Black Powder and Glue,
JPL.

“striving for the past three years.” Malina,
Letters,
20 August 1941.

“the squad belonged to the Communist Party.” Weinbaum, oral history interview.

“night watchman was in jail.” Phyllis Seckler, letter to the author, 11 January 2003. In his memoirs, Malina recalls that Paul Seckler worked as a mechanic.

“Malina thought a'séance.” Frank Malina, oral history interview by Wilson.

“fits of drunken violence.” Seckler,
In the Continuum,
III.7, 33.

“I didn't really know all that was going on.” Frank Malina, oral history interview by Wilson.

“give the Fascists hell.” Malina,
Letters,
22 March 1942.

“The rocketeers wondered aloud whether.” Malina,
A Memoir
(Vol. 2).

“the exploitation of our ideas.” Ibid.

“that dread brother of learning, industry.” Frank Malina, oral history interview by Wilson.

“go into manufacturing in any case.” Kârmân,
The Wind and Beyond,
256.

“the radio business in the late 1930s.” Various,
Aerojet: The Creative Company,
(Los Angeles: Stuart F. Cooper Company, 1995).

“produce JATOs for the armed forces.” Towards the end of 1941 another rocket project was instigated on campus at Caltech. Under the direction of Charles Lauritsen, thousands of barrage rockets—explosive rockets designed to be fired from land, air, or sea—were tested and produced at Caltech. Many thousands were made and used in both Europe and the Pacific. For more information see Judith Goodstein,
Millikan's School,
239–260.

“without blowing up anything.” Walter B. Powell, oral history interview by James Wilson, 29 March 1973, CALTECH.

“a teacher, and some rocket tinkerers.” It has been suggested by some sources that none of the founders, with the exception of the lawyer Haley, actually possessed the money to start the company, leaving Haley to put up the entire $2,500.

“Aerojet did not even make the business pages.” Various,
Aerojet: The Creative Company.

“Chinese stuff.” Kármán,
The Wind and Beyond,
261.

“an ulcer from worry.” Various,
Aerojet: The Creative Company.

“This is the crossroads.” Ibid.

“Andrew G. Haley stood for ‘God'.” Apollo Smith, oral history interview.

“He claims to hold 6 secret patents.” Parsons, letter to Frank Malina, 4 May 1942, JPL.

“in the back of Jack's mind.” Frank Malina, oral history interview by Wilson.

“a collaborative effort.” Parsons was eventually recognized by the patent office as the sole inventor of the fuel, and a patent was granted in his name.

“Greek Fire.” As well as listing other more pedestrian uses of asphalt, Parsons mentions Greek Fire in his report written with Mark Mills,
The Development of an Asphalt Base Solid Propellant,
Air Corps Jet Propulsion Research, GALCIT Project No. 1, Report Nos. 1–15, October 16, 1942, JPL.

“Why not get rid of black powder.” It has been suggested by the late Dr. John Bluth of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Archives that Parsons may have been equally inspired by the form in which roofing tar was delivered—in long cylindrical tubes of tar wrapped in paper, not unlike giant black cigars.

“then added potassium perchlorate.” Almost as radical as his decision to use asphalt as a fuel was his use of potassium perchlorate as an oxidizer. The army ordnance department had previously placed a ban on all uses of this chemical as being too toxic. Parsons knew that this toxicity had largely been due to the impurities of the chemical. Knowing that improvements in chemical manufacturing had largely rid the chemical of its toxicity, he did not care to wait for the regulations to be changed before experimenting with it.

“much safer to handle.” Parsons and Mills,
The Development of an Asphalt Solid Propellant.

 

9: DEGREES OF FREEDOM

“picking up pointers.” For a fuller exploration of the growing military interest and different rocket ventures started throughout the war, see Andrew Haley's
Rocketry and Space Exploration.

“several new angles on storage.” Parsons, letter to Helen Parsons, 1 May 1942, HPS.

“an exalting experience.” Ibid.