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392 reviews for:
Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars
Nathalia Holt
3.8 AVERAGE
392 reviews for:
Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars
Nathalia Holt
3.8 AVERAGE
I really wanted to like this book because I think the topic was interesting. I was interested in learning more about the women behind the success in space travel. I found the obstacles they faced also to be interesting. Overall, the book was informative.
However, this book took an incredibly long time for me to read. There were so many names, and I kept finding myself having to go back and figure out who people were or which mission was being discussed. The topics also seemed to go into different directions. One moment I would be reading about testing rockets and the next moment the author was describing one of the women's outfits. Other times a great deal of description went into one event and another was discussed in a few sentences. Many times I wondered if the book had been written by multiple authors because of the different styles I encountered throughout it.
However, this book took an incredibly long time for me to read. There were so many names, and I kept finding myself having to go back and figure out who people were or which mission was being discussed. The topics also seemed to go into different directions. One moment I would be reading about testing rockets and the next moment the author was describing one of the women's outfits. Other times a great deal of description went into one event and another was discussed in a few sentences. Many times I wondered if the book had been written by multiple authors because of the different styles I encountered throughout it.
“In this job you need to look like a girl, act like a lady, think like a man, and work like a dog.”
The women of JPL were amazing. Not only did most of them have engineering degrees, but they were also amazing mathematicians who did everything by hand very quickly in order to make sure they got the rockets where they needed to go in real time. It's absolutely amazing when you think about it. Because not only were they working, they were working as 'computers' and gained the respect of the men they worked with very quickly.
From just making military weapons, to making rockets and eventually the stat of NASA we see how they helped make so many things possible. Eventually some of them were able to get there names put onto the work that they were doing for a change. As NASA took over and changed things as well they were finally able to be called Engineers instead of 'computers'.
Most of their families were very supportive with their choice to work and use the knowledge they had. For the most part the husbands were also supportive, with some of them even helping make sure the women could go back to work after having children!
I loved hearing about these women and the struggles that they faced in this very changing time in the work force for women.
The support they gave each other was so refreshing to see, and how they all really were a little family always connected even as they started to retire.
I would suggest if you don't think you can physically read this book, then please get it from your library and listen to it on audio. It made the experience so enjoyable for me and probably the only way I was able to finish this book in 4 days.
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The women of JPL were amazing. Not only did most of them have engineering degrees, but they were also amazing mathematicians who did everything by hand very quickly in order to make sure they got the rockets where they needed to go in real time. It's absolutely amazing when you think about it. Because not only were they working, they were working as 'computers' and gained the respect of the men they worked with very quickly.
From just making military weapons, to making rockets and eventually the stat of NASA we see how they helped make so many things possible. Eventually some of them were able to get there names put onto the work that they were doing for a change. As NASA took over and changed things as well they were finally able to be called Engineers instead of 'computers'.
Most of their families were very supportive with their choice to work and use the knowledge they had. For the most part the husbands were also supportive, with some of them even helping make sure the women could go back to work after having children!
I loved hearing about these women and the struggles that they faced in this very changing time in the work force for women.
The support they gave each other was so refreshing to see, and how they all really were a little family always connected even as they started to retire.
I would suggest if you don't think you can physically read this book, then please get it from your library and listen to it on audio. It made the experience so enjoyable for me and probably the only way I was able to finish this book in 4 days.
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This book ticked my math nerd, science nerd and space nerd buttons. What these women did, initally with pencil and paper and the occassional use of a slide rule is mind-boggling. They were called computers because they did the computing the engineers need, the intricate math and formulas. Over time, they transitioned into programers and then into engineers.
I enjoyed the history behind the formation of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and their dedication to hiring qualified women with backgrounds in math and science. That dedication was due to the head of the computers, a woman named Marie, who intentionally kept her department all female to encourage the comradery they had with each other.
The book goes through the various women that were the first computers from the 1940s, touching on their lives. It was difficulty reading how many of them had to quit their jobs once they became pregnant. Luckily, that slowly changed over time. Other parts take you through the 1950's, 1960's and up to the present.
What I really enjoyed was the detailed recounting of the various space projects JPL and these women were involved in, seeing the incredible amount of time, effort and ingenuity they brought to the projects. The fact that these women figured out the trajectories for all those space missions to the various planets, using just their minds, pencil and paper, and rudimentary computers just shows how incredible they all were.
I enjoyed the history behind the formation of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and their dedication to hiring qualified women with backgrounds in math and science. That dedication was due to the head of the computers, a woman named Marie, who intentionally kept her department all female to encourage the comradery they had with each other.
The book goes through the various women that were the first computers from the 1940s, touching on their lives. It was difficulty reading how many of them had to quit their jobs once they became pregnant. Luckily, that slowly changed over time. Other parts take you through the 1950's, 1960's and up to the present.
What I really enjoyed was the detailed recounting of the various space projects JPL and these women were involved in, seeing the incredible amount of time, effort and ingenuity they brought to the projects. The fact that these women figured out the trajectories for all those space missions to the various planets, using just their minds, pencil and paper, and rudimentary computers just shows how incredible they all were.
I listened to this audio book in a few days and enjoyed it. It is an unabashedly opinionated story of the women of JPL in the small town of Pasadena contributing to the invention of rocketry and space exploration as we know it today.
The reviews on this book are pretty mixed, and probably reveals a lot about both the reader and the expectations on the story.
We do have a primarily female oriented view of the world, the trials and tribulations of the main characters are set in the harsh world or unfair rights and expectations, and the male and corporate view of them at various times (titles, attitudes, maternity leave etc) are true to form and not something that would leap out in any other story of the same situation.
However the author does no favors in a number of ways - everyone is pretty, there is a lot of focus on dress, and apart from an early mention of the first African-American hire there is no racial byline in a wholly gender focused story. This threw me, as I felt there is more there, and like many I found this book via [b: Hidden Figures|30840370|Hidden Figures The Untold True Story of Four African-American Women Who Helped Launch Our Nation into Space|Margot Lee Shetterly|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1474752658s/30840370.jpg|55627110]. In some ways it emphasizes the rarity of the Hidden Figures as a minority within a minority. As an audio book it was also pretty difficult to follow the various story arcs of the main women in the story - due to some time leaps and interweaving it was sometimes configuring when someone left to have a baby and returned to work later after two, for instance.
The whole arc of JPL is fascinating, and the the contributions of the computers and engineers who made it happen are detailed in just the right level of abstraction (description of computer languages seem a little dated, but the treatment of FORTRAN etc is excellent). I don’t know if there is rosy twist on the move away from weaponry development to space, or if it was the true feeling of the lab, and the change in narrative tone on von Braun was a little disappointing, but the pacing - with more focus on 50’s and early 60’s and then a light coverage of the 70’s through (almost) present day meant that a lot of ground was covered.
The epilogue ties off the book nicely.
The reviews on this book are pretty mixed, and probably reveals a lot about both the reader and the expectations on the story.
We do have a primarily female oriented view of the world, the trials and tribulations of the main characters are set in the harsh world or unfair rights and expectations, and the male and corporate view of them at various times (titles, attitudes, maternity leave etc) are true to form and not something that would leap out in any other story of the same situation.
However the author does no favors in a number of ways - everyone is pretty, there is a lot of focus on dress, and apart from an early mention of the first African-American hire there is no racial byline in a wholly gender focused story. This threw me, as I felt there is more there, and like many I found this book via [b: Hidden Figures|30840370|Hidden Figures The Untold True Story of Four African-American Women Who Helped Launch Our Nation into Space|Margot Lee Shetterly|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1474752658s/30840370.jpg|55627110]. In some ways it emphasizes the rarity of the Hidden Figures as a minority within a minority. As an audio book it was also pretty difficult to follow the various story arcs of the main women in the story - due to some time leaps and interweaving it was sometimes configuring when someone left to have a baby and returned to work later after two, for instance.
The whole arc of JPL is fascinating, and the the contributions of the computers and engineers who made it happen are detailed in just the right level of abstraction (description of computer languages seem a little dated, but the treatment of FORTRAN etc is excellent). I don’t know if there is rosy twist on the move away from weaponry development to space, or if it was the true feeling of the lab, and the change in narrative tone on von Braun was a little disappointing, but the pacing - with more focus on 50’s and early 60’s and then a light coverage of the 70’s through (almost) present day meant that a lot of ground was covered.
The epilogue ties off the book nicely.
This book took me forever to read. I was interested in the subject, but I don't understand the nuances of the science/math. Also, it jumped from woman to woman, and I was often getting confused.
The subject of this book is a well-chosen one, and its promise is high. There are parts that are interesting, and I do greatly value the work of the female computers (later engineers) that Holt profiles. The execution I found to be somewhat lacking; I get that she was probably trying to juxtapose public and private lives, but in practice it became "story of the rockets, largely focused on the male engineers and their work" and "story of the female computers' love lives and babies". That didn't work for me.
adventurous
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
I enjoyed learning about the history of JPL and the women who worked there, but I felt that there were too many different stories that were started and then dropped. It was hard to keep them all straight.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
inspiring
medium-paced
I loved this book. It was very engaging and the storytelling was on point. The lives of the women are fascinating. I felt like we spent enough time with each woman that we got to know her story. It's well researched, to include accessories in outfits worn on certain days. The women and their importance to the work really shines through.