NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory marks its 80th anniversary

It was Halloween 1936 when seven young men convened in the San Gabriel Mountains to turn the idea of a working rocket from fantasy to reality. That effort helped usher in the Space Age and marked the founding of one of the world's leading centers for robotic exploration of the solar system, NASA's famed Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Caltech-managed exploration hub in La Cañada Flintridge. Monday was the 80th anniversary of that first exhilarating trek into the nearby foothills to light a liquid rocket engine. It was much like any other workday at JPL-- the sprawling campus leans casual, with scientists dressed in jeans and running sneakers or Halloween costumes ranging from a pirate to "Star Trek's" Captain Kirk-- but on this day many also remembered highlights from the past. The laboratory has seen major successes, including the first orbiting spacecraft in 1968, the successful launches of Voyager I and II in 1977 and the landing of the Mars rover Pathfinder in 1997.