Mary Sherman Morgan

Morgan was the subject of a semi-biographical stage play written by her son, George. The play, Rocket Girl, was produced by Theater Arts at California Institute of Technology (TACIT), directed by Brian Brophy, and was performed at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California on November 17, 2008. Her son admitted that he knew surprisingly little about his mother's life and work when she died, as she worked in an industry connected to defense and national security, and was limited in what she could discuss. He had built and launched homemade rockets with friends in the Arizona desert, and as he recalled, "If I'd known how much expertise in rocketry my mother had, we could have asked her for help and saved ourselves a great deal of trouble." The play was later turned into a book by the same name.

Morgan died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) emphysema on August 4, 2004 at 82 years old, despite having quit her heavy smoking habit for Lent 29 years earlier. In July 2013, the BBC's online news magazine released a short video tribute to Morgan, narrated by her son, George.

In 1957, the Soviet Union and the United States had set a goal of placing satellites into Earth orbit as part of a worldwide scientific celebration, known as the International Geophysical Year. In this endeavor, the United States' effort was called Project Vanguard. The Soviet Union successfully launched the Sputnik satellite on October 4, 1957, an event followed soon after by a very public and disastrous explosion of a Vanguard rocket. Political pressure forced U.S. politicians to allow a former German rocket scientist, Wernher von Braun, to prepare his Jupiter C rocket for an orbital flight. In the renamed launcher (now called Juno I), the propellant succeeded in launching America's first satellite, Explorer I, into orbit on January 31, 1958. After the Jupiter C and six Juno I launches, the U.S. switched to more powerful fuels.

Morgan was assigned to lead a group of college interns at North American Aviation's Rocketdyne Division. Due to her expertise and experience, Morgan's work resulted in the birth of a new propellant, Hydyne. The standard Redstone was fueled with a 75% ethyl alcohol solution, but the Jupiter-C first stage had used Hydyne fuel, a blend of 60% unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) and 40% diethylenetriamine (DETA). This was a more powerful fuel than ethyl alcohol. The first Hydyne-powered Redstone R&D flight took place on 29 November 1956, and Hydyne subsequently powered three Jupiter C nose cone test flights.

Mary Sherman became pregnant out of wedlock in 1943, a difficult dilemma in an era when such behavior was considered extremely shameful and women were often given back-alley abortions or hidden away from their friends and family. At that time, she was living with her first cousin, Mary Hibbard, in Huron, Ohio. In 1944, she gave birth to a daughter, Mary G. Sherman, whom she later gave up for adoption to Hibbard and her husband, Irving. The child was renamed Ruth Esther.

The second youngest of six siblings, Mary Sherman was born to Michael and Dorothy Sherman on their farm in Ray, North Dakota. She grew up in a family of bullying siblings and indifferent parents who kept her out of school to work on the farm. Social services stepped in and threatened to arrest Mary's father unless he allowed her to attend school. The social worker then provided her with riding lessons and a horse to attend her one-roomed school house. In 1939, she graduated as her high school's valedictorian. She then enrolled at DeSales College in Toledo, Ohio as a chemistry major.

Mary Sherman Morgan (November 4, 1921 – August 4, 2004) was a U.S. rocket fuel scientist credited with the invention of the liquid fuel Hydyne in 1957, which powered the Jupiter-C rocket that boosted the United States' first satellite, Explorer 1.