3. Was Parsons America’s number one solid fuel rocket expert?

Origin of Issue:

Dr Jack Parsons of Pasadena, California, was America’s Number One solid fuel rocket expert.

London Sunday Times 28 December 1969 SCIENTOLOGY: New Light on Crowley

Analysis:

It’s possibly impossible to say authoritatively if Parsons was the number one solid rocket fuel expert in the US. It’s also irrelevant in this study.

No writers who have written seriously at all about Hubbard’s involvement in the occult have disputed Parsons’ being a rocket scientist. John Carter wrote in his 1999 book Sex and Rockets:¹

[Professor Theodore] von Kármán wrote in 1958 that Parsons was the third most important person in the development of rocketry in the United States – behind only himself and [aeronautical engineer ] Frank Malina. (p.9)

Hubbard hyperbolized throughout his writings and lectures, not only about himself but about his claimed or actual friends or associates, and his assertion that Parsons was America’s number one solid rocket fuel expert appears to be hyperbole. Even if Parson was conceivably “number one” for a brief time, the US has able to get along fine without him in the country’s rocket fuel research and development, and even to keep him out of the field because of security breaches.

Conclusion: Parsons may or may not have been the number one solid rocket fuel expert in America, but his status as number one or as a rocket scientist at all is irrelevant to Hubbard’s claims in his “information” about breaking up black magic in America or being on a mission to break it up.

Further reading:

1. Parson’s education
2. Symonds, John, The Beast 666 (pp 568, 572)

Evidence: