In 1945 Parsons separated from Helen after having an affair with her sister Sara when Sara left him for L. Parsons was expelled from JPL and Aerojet in 1944 due to the Lodge's infamy and allegedly illicit activities, along with his hazardous workplace conduct. At Crowley's bidding, he replaced Wilfred Talbot Smith as its leader in 1942 and ran the Lodge from his mansion on Orange Grove Avenue. In 1941, alongside his first wife Helen Northrup, Parsons joined the Agape Lodge, the Californian branch of the Thelemite Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.). Following American entry into World War II, in 1942 they founded Aerojet to develop and sell their JATO technology, while the GALCIT Group became JPL in 1943.Īfter a brief involvement with Marxism in 1939, Parsons converted to Thelema, the English occultist Aleister Crowley's new religious movement. 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. He dropped out of Pasadena Junior College and Stanford University due to financial difficulties during the Great Depression, but in 1934 he united with Forman and graduate student Frank Malina to form the Caltech-affiliated GALCIT Rocket Research Group, supported by Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory chairman Theodore von Kármán. Inspired by science fiction literature, he developed an interest in rocketry in his childhood and in 1928 began amateur rocket experiments with school friend Ed Forman. He invented the first rocket engine using a castable, composite rocket propellant, and pioneered the advancement of both liquid-fuel and solid-fuel rockets.īorn in Los Angeles, California, Parsons was raised by a wealthy family on Orange Grove Avenue in Pasadena. 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.
Template:Infobox person John Whiteside Parsons (born Marvel Whiteside Parsons Template:Refn Octo– June 17, 1952), better known as Jack Parsons, was an American rocket engineer and rocket propulsion researcher, chemist, and Thelemite occultist.
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