AirSpace Season 9, Episode 1: The Suicide Squad

In the 1930s, rocketry was basically a joke among the scientific establishment in the US, but that didn't stop a rag tag group out of Pasadena from trying to build rockets. That group would first be known as The Suicide Squad (for all the dangerous experiments they conducted on campus) and later as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Over its first decade, the JPL story includes funding challenges, communist intrigue, brushes with the occult, building weapons, building engines and ultimately--building rockets. Buckle in, this one's a wild ride.

Thanks to our guests in this episode:

• Fraser MacDonald, Author, Escape from Earth: A Secret History of the Space Rocket
• Erik Conway, JPL Historian
• Interview with Frank Malina from the Caltech Archives and Special Collections

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Transcript