Happy Birthday, Mary G. Ross!
Mary Golda Ross was the first Native American woman engineer. Her work at Lockheed and NASA included developing the Agena rockets, designing concepts for flights to Mars and Venus, and creating operational requirements for spacecraft.
Learn about her life and work from the Smithsonian article, This Little-Known Math Genius Helped America Reach the Stars:
After graduating from Northeastern State College with a math degree, she decided to put her skills to work on behalf of other Native Americans, working first as a statistician for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and then at a Native American boarding school in New Mexico.
Math always called Rossâs name, and in 1942, armed with a masterâs degree, she joined Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. As World War II raged, the company was working on new military aircraft. Ross helped them troubleshoot the P-38 Lightning, a fighter plane that came close to breaking the sound barrier and that engineers worried would collapse during dives. (Thanks to the work of Ross and her fellow mathematicians and engineers, Lockheed eventually realized that their fears were unfounded.)
After the war ended, Lockheed sent Ross to UCLA to earn a classification in aeronautical engineering and slowly, she began to progress through the companyâs male-dominated ranks. âShe worked with a lot of guys with slide rules and pocket protectors,â says Jeff Rhodes, Lockheed Martinâs historian and the editor of Code One magazine. âThe stereotype was real.â
Women had always been a part of Lockheed Martin, says Rhodes. Nonetheless, when Ross was recruited to join Skunk Works, the companyâs then-top-secret think tank, she was the only woman aside from the secretary.
Image Credits:Â
Mary G. Ross from Beyond Curie by Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya
Mary G. Ross Google Doodle
Ad Astra per Astra by America Meredith, depicting Mary Gold Ross. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.Â
