Project Deal Playing Cards

Dorothy (Deedee) Rechtin, widow of JPL systems engineer Eberhardt Rechtin, donated this deck of playing cards to the JPL Archives. “Deal was the pet name for the satellite project that later became known as Explorer 1. According to University of Iowa graduate student George Ludwig, who worked with physicist James Van Allen on the satellite science , there were two possible origins for the nickname. One is based on the time JPL scientists spent playing fin rummy whenever they had down time. “One account,” Ludwig wrote, “says that immediately after the first scheduled firing of the RTV [Reentry Test Vehicle]-Jupiter-C in 19546, they were ready with their cards, and one of them called out, ‘Deal!’ The other, Ludwig said, came from project director Jack Froehlich, “a formidable poker player, he is claimed to have bestowed the name after the first Sputnik launch with the remark, ‘When a big pot is won, the winner sits around and cracks bad jokes and the loser cries ‘Deal!’”