Lee Young is that rara avis – a real rocket scientist. He is also African American. His brilliant career – which began one evening when his brother suggested, over bourbon and ginger ale, that he go to college to study mechanical engineering – is not only an absorbing account of one man’s rise to the top of a demanding profession but also a fascinating social history of the event-filled era (roughly 1929 to 1965) in which he came of age.