You develop the mathematics in advance, you create the reference materials, you train the engineers who will use those materials, and you build the technical foundation that makes future achievement possible.

By the time the engineers who designed the Mars missions of the 1970s needed the trajectory mathematics, that mathematics needed to already exist and be understood and be available in forms they could use.

Mary Ross’s co-authorship of the Planetary Flight Handbook is part of why that mathematics was available.

The Secret Architecture Of American Aerospace

To understand the world she worked in, you have to understand the specific combination of technological ambition, institutional organization, and political secrecy that characterized American aerospace in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Cold War had created a situation in which technological advantage was also strategic advantage.