Mary Golda Ross shattered barriers as Lockheed's first female engineer, yet her groundbreaking contributions to aerospace remained classified for decades. David Bernstein's biography recovers the remarkable story of a Cherokee mathematician who helped design spacecraft for missions to Mars and Venus while working in the legendary Skunk Works. Born in 1908 in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, Ross grew up steeped in her tribe's emphasis on education and gender equality. Her great-great-grandfather was Principal Chief John Ross, who led the Cherokee through the Trail of Tears. After earning degrees in mathematics, Ross joined Lockheed during World War II and proved so talented she was recruited into the top-secret Advanced Development Projects division. There she worked alongside Kelly Johnson on the P-38 Lightning fighter and later contributed to preliminary designs for interplanetary missions, ballistic missiles, and satellites. Bernstein traces how Ross navigated the male-dominated aerospace industry while maintaining deep connections to Cherokee culture. She advocated for Native American education and engineering careers until her death at 99, appearing on a commemorative quarter in 2019. The biography illuminates a pivotal era in American aerospace history through the eyes of a woman whose identity as both Cherokee and engineer enriched her contributions to humanity's reach toward the stars.