John Whiteside Parsons - Career

Career

In 1936, Parsons joined the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory (GALCIT) of the California Institute of Technology, where he worked for Frank Malina and Theodore von Kármán in Pasadena.

While his formal education was limited, Parsons demonstrated tremendous scientific aptitude and genius, particularly in chemistry. His rocket research was some of the earliest in the United States, and his pioneering work in the development of solid fuel and the invention of JATO units for aircraft was of great importance to the start of humanity's space age. The noted engineer Theodore von Kármán, Parsons' friend and benefactor, declared that the work of Parsons and his peers helped usher in the age of space travel. Parsons co-founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, commonly referred to as JPL. According to von Kármán, Parsons' work in solid fuel research "... made possible such outstanding rockets as the Polaris and the Minuteman.

It was in 1942, the same year Parsons was appointed as head of the Agapé Lodge by Aleister Crowley (who himself had studied chemistry), that Parsons made the crucial breakthrough in the development of rocket solid fuel. Following intuition, Parsons switched from black powder to asphalt and potassium perchlorate. Compared with Peenemünde, the contemporary German army research facility, America was finally in the race for rocket propulsion with solid fuel for the space age.