Marvel Whiteside Parsons (aka Jack Parsons) & his wife/muse Marjorie Cameron

January 21, 2022

Marvel Whiteside Parsons (aka Jack Parsons) & his wife/muse Marjorie Cameron

"When Parsons worked on his rocketry experiments in the desert he would recite a Pagan poem to Pan. Pendle doesn't see this as particularly strange, saying, "They were all young guys, it would have been like going into a huddle and shouting the name of your team."

John Whiteside Parsons (born Marvel Whiteside Parsons; October 2, 1914 – June 17, 1952) was an American rocket engineer, chemist, and Thelemite occultist. Associated with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Parsons was one of the principal founders of both the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the Aerojet Engineering Corporation. He invented the first rocket engine to use a castable, composite rocket propellant, and pioneered the advancement of both liquid-fuel and solid-fuel rockets.

As teenagers in the 1920s, a time when space travel was limited to science fiction novels, Wernher von Braun in Germany and Jack Parsons in Pasadena, CA shared an intercontinental rocket science correspondence. Talking for hours on the phone, they exchanged ideas, tips, and notes from experiments on everything from explosions to home-engineered rocket fuel tests. Into adulthood, they went on separate paths.

Born in Los Angeles, Parsons was raised by a wealthy family on Orange Grove Boulevard in Pasadena. Inspired by science fiction literature, he developed an interest in rocketry in his childhood and in 1928 began amateur rocket experiments with school friend Edward S. Forman. He dropped out of Pasadena Junior College and Stanford University due to financial difficulties during the Great Depression, and in 1934 he united with Forman and graduate Frank Malina to form the Caltech-affiliated Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory (GALCIT) Rocket Research Group, supported by GALCIT chairman Theodore von Kármán. In 1939 the GALCIT Group gained funding from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to work on Jet-Assisted Take Off (JATO) for the U.S. military. After the U.S. entered World War II, they founded Aerojet in 1942 to develop and sell JATO technology; the GALCIT Group became JPL in 1943.

In December 1958 JPL was integrated into the newly established National Aeronautics and Space Administration, having built the Explorer 1 satellite that commenced America's Space Race with the Soviet Union. Aerojet was contracted by NASA to build the main engine of the Apollo Command/Service Module, and the Space Shuttle Orbital Maneuvering System. In a letter to Frank Malina, von Kármán ranked Parsons first in a list of figures he viewed as most important to modern rocketry and the foundation of the American space program. According to Richard Metzger, Wernher von Braun—who was nicknamed "The Father of Rocket Science"—once argued that Parsons was more worthy of this moniker. In October 1968 Malina, a pioneer in sounding rocketry, gave a speech at JPL in which he highlighted Parsons' contribution to the U.S. rocket project, and lamented how it had come to be neglected, crediting him for making "key contributions to the development of storable propellants and of long duration solid propellant agents that play such an important role in American and European space technology."

The same month JPL held an open access event to mark the 32nd anniversary of its foundation—which featured a "nativity scene" of mannequins reconstructing the November 1936 photograph of the GALCIT Group—and erected a monument commemorating their first rocket test on Halloween 1936. Among the aerospace industry, JPL was nicknamed as standing for "Jack Parsons' Laboratory" or "Jack Parsons Lives". The International Astronomical Union decided to name a crater on the far side of the Moon Parsons after him in 1972. JPL later credited him for making "distinctive technical innovations that advanced early efforts" in rocket engineering, with aerospace journalist Craig Covault stating that the work of Parsons, Qian Xuesen and the GALCIT Group "planted the seeds for JPL to become preeminent in space and rocketry."

Parsons and Cameron decided to travel to Mexico for a few months, both for a vacation and for Parsons to take up a job opportunity establishing an explosives factory for the Mexican government. On June 17, 1952, a day before their planned departure, Parsons received a rush order of explosives for a film set and began to work on it in his home laboratory. An explosion destroyed the lower part of the building, during which Parsons sustained mortal wounds. His right forearm was amputated, his legs and left arm were broken and a hole was torn in the right side of his face. Despite these critical injuries, Parsons was found conscious by the upstairs lodgers. He tried to communicate with the arriving ambulance workers, who rushed him to the Huntington Memorial Hospital, where he was declared dead approximately thirty-seven minutes after the explosion. When his mother, Ruth, learned of his death she immediately took a fatal overdose of barbiturates.

Pasadena Police Department criminologist Don Harding led the official investigation; he concluded that Parsons had been mixing fulminate of mercury in a coffee can when he dropped it on the floor, causing the initial explosion, which worsened when it came into contact with other chemicals in the room. Forman considered this likely, stating that Parsons often had sweaty hands and could easily have dropped the can. Some of Parsons' colleagues rejected this explanation, saying that he was very attentive about safety. Two colleagues from the Bermite Powder Company described Parsons' work habits as "scrupulously neat" and "exceptionally cautious". The latter statement—from chemical engineer George Santymers—insisted that the explosion must have come from beneath the floorboards, implying an organized plot to kill Parsons. His death has never been definitively explained.

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In 1936 these founders of what would become the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA conducted their first rocket tests in the Arroyo Seco, and were soon after commissioned by the U.S. Army Air Corps to develop “jet-assisted take-off” rockets. In 1942 Parsons co-founded the rocket and missile manufacturer Aerojet but by 1944 he was bought out and his affiliations with military and government projects were terminated. Parsons died tragically from fatal injuries after a presumed accidental explosion in his home laboratory.

I started digging into both von Braun’s and Parsons’ stories separately but simultaneously. At first, I did not know that there was a concrete link between them. I was looking at the type of person that it takes to want to go to the moon and conquer space. They were both eccentric, driven, self-centered and had dreamed of going to the moon when space travel was confined to science-fiction novels. In my mind there was a link between them purely based on their personalities. I was thrilled to find out that they actually knew each other and, as teenagers, had talked on the phone about their experiments. This was in the 1920s and they were both members of their respective rocket clubs.

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One of the group's key innovations was developing Jet-Assisted Take Off (JATO) engines for the US Air Corps, with Parsons developing a restricted burning solid rocket fuel that was stable enough to be stored indefinitely. The engine technology and fuel were commercialised through a company called Aerojet, where Parsons became project engineer. Versions of this fuel was eventually used by Nasa in the Space Shuttle as well as in military ballistic missiles.

In Pendle's view, Parsons is the founding father of rocketry and should be recognised as such. This sentiment is echoed by a number of his colleagues, including Wernher von Braun and Malina, who felt as though his contributions to American space technology had been neglected. "If you are looking for a conspiracy it's not his death, it's why he's been wiped from history. There is much more room for mavericks now than there was in the 1940s and 50s."

, there's no mention of him as a founder," continues Pendle. "He may be referenced briefly in the footnotes, but it's the occult side of his life that keeps his light burning, not the science."

Wired.co.uk contacted JPL and we asked whether Parsons had been written out of the history books. Historian Erik Conway said: "Jack Parsons is included in history books and other venues, and in fact, his role is discussed in the JPL-involved standard history, JPL and the American Space Program by Clayton R. Koppes. Parsons was one of the original founders of JPL. He was the team's chemist and developed the first castable solid propellant used to power aircraft."

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Parsons died in an explosion of mysterious origin at his chemical laboratory at home in Pasadena on June 17, 1952. His second wife and collaborator, the artist Cameron, preserved and carried on his work until her death in 1995. In 1972 the International Astronomical Union named a crater on the moon (37°N 171°W) after Parsons in recognition of his pivotal role in developing the solid fuel rocket."

-taken from sources below

John Whiteside "Jack" Parsons at the JPL test site in the Arroyo Seco, Pasadena. 1941. Parsons would recite hymns to Pan during his tests.

Take-off on August 12, 1941 of America's first "rocket-assisted" fixed-wing aircraft, an Ercoupe fitted with a GALCIT developed solid propellant JATO booster.

Parsons standing above a JATO canister at JPL June 1943.

GALCIT Project Number 1 during the JATO experiments (date as above). From left to right: Fred S. Miller, Jack Parsons, Ed Forman, Frank Malina, Captain Homer Boushey, Private Kobe (first initial unknown), and Corporal R. Hamilton.

Parsons worked on developing the SM-64 Navaho missile (pictured launching in 1957).

"It was Halloween 1936 in the wilds of the Arroyo Seco, beneath the towering San Gabriel Mountains. Seven young men — Jack Parsons, Ed Forman, Frank Malina, A.O. Smith, William Bollay, Carlos Woods and William Rockefeller — were up to no good, testing a homemade rocket motor of their own design. From left to right: Rudolph Schott, Apollo Milton Olin Smith, Frank Malina, Ed Forman and Jack Parsons at First Rocket Motor Firing at JPL in 1936."

Jack Parsons in 1938, holding the replica car bomb used in the murder trial of police officer Captain Earl Kynette. Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons.

Frank J. Malina and Jack Parsons, Arroyo Sec, Halloween, 1936.

Parsons (center) and GALCIT colleagues in the Arroyo Seco, Halloween 1936. JPL marks this experiment as its foundation.

Photo of the occultist and artist Marjorie Cameron, taken during the mid-1940s. In the 40s, Cameron joined the US Navy, where she drew maps for admirals and worked in a photographic unit during World War II. COURTESY OF THE CAMERON-PARSONS FOUNDATION.

After serving in World War II, Cameron married rocket engineer and occultist Jack Parsons. COURTESY OF THE CAMERON-PARSONS FOUNDATION.

Cameron in a film still from Curtis Harrington's Night Tide, 1961. Courtesy of the Cameron Parsons Foundation.

Above: JPL in 1950. Below: JPL in 2005.

Above: JPL entrance 1957. Below: JPL entrance 2016.

The Parsons Moon crater.

Parsons was called as an expert witness in bomb cases. Los Angeles Times.

Jack Parsons & Marjorie Cameron, 1946.

Dark Angel, a painting by Marjorie Cameron (1922-1995) based on the likeness of her husband John Whiteside "Jack" Parsons (1914-1952).

Cameron's self-portrait, The Black Egg, was placed at the centre of an altar during Cameron's 1995 memorial service.

Parsons is credited for inventions used in rocket technology such as the Space Shuttle.

The GALCIT JATO engineering team during the solid propellant tests in January 1940. Parsons is visible cropped out on the extreme left alongside Clark Blanchard Millikan, Martin Summerfield, Theodore von Kármán, Frank Malina and pilot, Captain Homer Boushey.