At the Four-foot SPT, Mary Jackson conducted tests of the Apollo capsule and other components, honing their fitness for the portion of the journey that would take place in the supersonic speed regime. That work would earn her an Apollo Team Achievement Award. Sue Wilder was rolling up her sleeves among the “mad scientists” of Langley’s Magnetoplasmadynamics (MPD) Branch, her work also concerned with the physics of a vehicle reentering the atmosphere.
