The TV series "Strange Angel" is the real life story of what famous scientist?

The TV series "Strange Angel" is the real-life story of scientist and rocket pioneer Jack Parsons.

The CBS All Access drama is based on George Pendle's biography Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons. It follows Parsons in 1930s Los Angeles, where his fascination with science fiction and explosives led him into early American rocketry.

Parsons was a co-founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and helped establish the Aerojet Engineering Corporation. His work on solid-fuel rocket technology contributed to the development of propulsion systems that later influenced the American space program. He was largely self-taught and worked outside the traditional academic scientific establishment.

The series also emphasizes the extraordinary contrast between Parsons's technical career and his interest in occultism and Thelema. He was associated with Aleister Crowley and the Ordo Templi Orientis, giving the show its unusual combination of aerospace history, counterculture and mysticism. "Strange Angel" dramatizes real events, but it is a fictionalized television biography rather than a documentary.