The Los Angeles City Beat features this bus tour, which takes in some local SoCal military sites and is organized by Physicians for Social Responsibility. Here is what the reporter writes about the Jet Propulsions Laboratory part of the tour:
Ammonium perchlorate’s use as a rocket-fuel booster has its origins at JPL, which is now known primarily for its NASA space work. A young scientist named Jack Parsons developed this exotic fuel in the Arroyo Seco and led a short life just as explosive. Parsons dabbled in the occult as a follower of Aleister Crowley, held sex- and drug-drenched orgies at his Pasadena mansion, and lost his wife and money to a pre-Scientology L. Ron Hubbard. At the young age of 37, Parsons blew himself to pieces in his kitchen during an experiment with fulminate of mercury, a gray crystalline powder that, when dry, explodes under percussion or heat and is used in detonators...
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