My unsung hero of science: Frank Malina – fearless rocket engineer, groundbreaking artist and communist ‘traitor’

By Stephen Roddy, Lecturer, Radical Humanities Laboratory, Future Humanities Institute, University College Cork

Frank Malina was a lot of things. The Texas-born aeronautical engineer co-designed the first jet-assisted take-off (Jato) rocket and the US’s first operational high-altitude rocket. He co-founded and became director of Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory – and along the way, joined a team of rocket engineers who became known as the “suicide squad” for their risk-taking approach.

Malina was also a pacifist and anti-fascist, a card-carrying member of the Communist party, and a painter and pioneer in the field of kinetic art…

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