Space race

Mary Sherman Morgan, circa 1950s

I've been doing a lot of Netflix binging in the last few months, in part because I've been so exhausted at the end of a day that I just collapse into a chair and let the images go past. #pandemic 

Having Crash with us has expanded our repertoire. This week, we've been watching the comedy Space Force. (I'm a space nerd, so have also lately dipped into The Expanse and Avenue Five. If it's set in space, I'll give it a spin.) Space Force cuts awfully close to the bone, what I might five years ago have considered satire now just replays the real news of the day.

The last episode we watched featured character Edison Jaymes, a Goop-ish woman entrepreneur whose fuel is supposed to burn more completely and energetically, solving a problems she says, that the male scientists have been unable to.

 Spoiler. The fuel is a fake and they launch to the moon with the standard fuel.

What struck me about this is that this story line is also ripped from the news, but in real life, the fuel that the male scientists designed was the failure. In 1958, after a number of notable and embarrassing launch failures, chemist Mary Sherman Morgan designed the fuel (Hydyne) that would successfully carry the first US satellite to orbit.