Mary Sherman Morgan

Mary Sherman Morgan (4 November 1921 to 4 August 2004) was an American rocket fuel scientist credited with inventing the liquid propellant Hydyne in 1957. Born on a farm in Ray, North Dakota, she studied chemistry and during the Second World War worked at the Plum Brook Ordnance Works making explosives. She then joined North American Aviation, where she became a Theoretical Performance Specialist in its Rocketdyne Division, calculating the expected performance of new propellants; she was the only woman among about 900 engineers. When the Army needed more power from the Redstone derived Jupiter-C without redesigning the engine, she led the effort that produced Hydyne, a blend of 60 percent unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine and 40 percent diethylenetriamine, which fuelled the rocket that carried Explorer 1, the first American satellite, into orbit in January 1958. Her secretive defence work left her little known, and her son later wrote the play and book Rocket Girl about her.