Barbara Paulson

Barbara Jean Paulson (née Lewis; April 11, 1928 – February 26, 2023) was an American human computer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and one of the first female scientists employed there. Paulson began working as a mathematician at JPL in 1948, where she calculated rocket trajectories by hand. She is among the women who made early progress at JPL.

Early life Barbara Jean Lewis was born in Columbus, Ohio on April 11, 1928. She was raised with three siblings (two older sisters and one younger brother), and when she was 12 years old her father died. Beginning in 9th grade, Paulson took four years of Latin and math while her sisters took short hand as Paulson did not want to be a secretary. After attending Ohio State University for one year, Paulson's sister, who was already working in Pasadena at the time, convinced her mother to move to Pasadena as well. In 1947 the family moved to Pasadena, California, where her career at JPL would begin. The multi-stage launch that Paulson aided in calculations for allowed the Corporal to carry a warhead over 200 miles.

In 1960, when Paulson was 32 years old, she and her husband Harry were expecting their first child. When Paulson requested a closer parking space at work because she was pregnant, she was forced to quit as JPL did not employ pregnant women at the time and keeping a pregnant woman on staff would result in insurance policy problems. JPL had no maternity leave, so women who were fired or forced to quit their positions did not have jobs to return to after giving birth. Paulson's supervisor, Helen Ling, worked hard to rehire women who had been forced out with no parental leave, so in 1961, when her daughter was seven months old, Paulson accepted Ling's offer and returned to the lab. and in the 1960s 'the Queen of Outer Space'.

In the 1960s, with JPL's reputation cemented by the success of Explorer-1, JPL began to set its sights on the moon and other interplanetary exploration missions. Paulson and her colleague Helen Ling worked overtime to calculate the trajectories of the Mariner probes that would later be sent to Venus and Mars.

In the 1970s, Paulson later went on to play a vital role in the Viking program, becoming the first lander to reach the surface of Mars. Paulson successfully calculated the trajectory the Viking probe needed on its 11-month transit between Earth and Mars. Throughout pregnancy and her eventual return to work at JPL, Barbara's husband at the time was a real estate appraiser and member of the Pasadena Board of Realtors. Fortunately, upon Barbara's return to work, Harry was able to adjust his schedule, as did many of the other human computers with children, to ensure that their children were taken care of.

Recognition and legacy In 1959 Paulson was recognized and received her 10-year pin for her work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Paulson would work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for 45 years, and retire in 1993. In 2016, Nathalia Holt wrote Rise of the Rocket Girls, a book about Paulson and other women who were early employees at NASA.