“about a quarter mile from the Caltech campus”
Author has no knowledge of Pasadena.
Heinlein, Hubbard and Parsons – A Strange Trinity
Helinlein and Hubbard first met circa 1940, when they both attended a Kriegspiel (a naval war game using wooden models) organised by a fellow writer. Heinlein had been impressed by the apparently realistic treatment of military command in Hubbard’s story “Final Blackout”, and,, for a time, they continued to meet as members of the ‘Manana Literary Society,’ an informal discussion group for idealistic science-fiction writers.
By 1942 Heinlein was working as a civilian mechanical engineer and administrator at the Naval Aircraft Factory in the Navy Yard in Philadelphia, where pressure suits for high-altitude pilots were being developed.
profile_chronology_41_l-ron-hubbardIn 1944 Heinlein and Hubbard (now an officer in the US navy), met in Philadelphia during a unsuccessful brainstorming session that Heinlein had organised with fellow science-fiction writers. The aim was to originate new ideas to combat the Kamikaze threat that inflicting such terrible casualties on the US Navy.
While other attendees were very suspicious of the wild stories Hubbard told about himself (which included descriptions of the many and varied war wounds that he had not, in fact received) Heinlein took Hubbard seriously. Perhaps he projected on to Hubbard the fighting role that he so earnestly desired for himself.
Soon after this meeting, Heinlein was assigned a ‘crash priority’ project to develop ‘radomes’ – non-metallic enclosures that would serve not only to protect radar installations in aircraft, but also make them more aerodynamic. This was an extremely sensitive mission, at a time when RADAR was a top-secret force multiplier of the utmost importance. It is tragically ironic that Heinlein, who significantly advanced the war effort, should have envied and admired an incompetent ‘Naval Officer’ like Hubbard who, at his best, wasted resources and got in the way.
As the war approached its end, Heinlein and his wife went on tour of the USA. At a dinner in Pasadena they met the pioneering rocket scientist John Whiteside Parsons. Parsons had just sold his interest in parsonsthe solid rocket boosters he had developed to provide military aircraft with a ‘jet assisted take off’ capability, and Heinlein hoped to interest in joining his campaign to send a rocket to the moon.. . “
From: 2010 | Robert A Heinlein: In Dialogue With His Century
Volume 1: Leaning Curve 1907 – 1948
William H Patterson Jr
The above post found at:
The bomb destroyed the right side of his face and arm?
I wonder if he owned a take-out restaurant that sold fried chicken?
Thanks for the interesting divertissement from the politics.