The Ultimate Engineer

October 28, 2019
Jurek (Marketing the Moon, coauthor), an Air & Space magazine contributor, gives a now obscure, yet vital, player in America’s space program his due in this solid biography. George M. Low (1926–1984), who immigrated to the U.S. from Austria in 1940, joined NASA precursor NACA (the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) in 1949 as an aeronautical research scientist, and transferred to NASA upon its formation nine years later. Jurek makes extensive use of Low’s own writings, as well as interviews with his friends and family, to recount a meteoric career, which would see him head the Gemini and Apollo programs, shepherding the latter toward a successful lunar landing after the traumatic Apollo 1 fire. While according the most attention to Low’s professional achievements—which also included being named deputy NASA administrator in December 1969—Jurek takes care to humanize his subject, with appealing descriptions of Low’s devotion to his wife and to their five children. Even under the immense pressure of the Apollo program, Low tried, he told reporters, “to make it a rule not to work on Sundays.” The result of Jurek’s extensive research and careful use of detail is a comprehensive portrait of a figure vastly greater in significance than in name recognition. (Dec.)Correction: An earlier version of this review referred to George M. Low's wife by an incorrect name.

December 1, 2019

Jurek (coauthor, Marketing the Moon) provides a scholarly, yet accessible and engaging account of George M. Low (1926-84), former NASA administrator and leader of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The author describes how Low immigrated to the United States from Austria at age 12, already interested in taking things apart to see how they work. Low served in the U.S. Army and became a citizen, obtaining an aeronautical engineering degree at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and later becoming the school's president. But first, he spent more than 20 years at NASA, helping found the agency, serving as manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office, and ultimately deputy director. VERDICT This well-researched book is as much a history of NASA as a biography of George Low, and as such is an important contribution to the history of the agency. Jurek's detailed book will appeal to both fans and scholars of NASA and of the engineers like who make the agency's spaceflights work.--Sara R. Tompson, Lawrence, KS

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