KATHERINE JOHNSON NASA ADDRESS TODAY HOW TO

“Katherine organized herself immediately at her desk, growing phone-book-thick stacks of data sheets a number at a time, blocking out everything except the labyrinth of trajectory equations,” Margot Lee Shetterly wrote in her 2016 book “Hidden Figures,” on which the film is based. “Get the girl to check the numbers,” a computer-skeptical Glenn had insisted in the days before the launch.

The next year, she manually verified the calculations of a nascent NASA computer, an IBM 7090, which plotted John Glenn’s orbits around the planet. In 1961, Johnson did trajectory analysis for Alan Shepard’s Freedom 7 Mission, the first to carry an American into space.

KATHERINE JOHNSON NASA ADDRESS TODAY HOW TO

“You tell me when and where you want it to come down, and I will tell you where and when and how to launch it.” An inspiring story that should not be forgotten and that should remind us how much talent and progress the world may have missed out on by not letting a child fulfill her dream.Īrticle reviewed by Alejandra Aguirre-Santaella, PhD at the UAM and IFT.“Our office computed all the trajectories,” Johnson told the Virginian-Pilot newspaper in 2012. ” Ĭan you imagine having a dream, being forbidden to pursue it since you were a child, and still being able to achieve it? This is the true story of Katherine Johnson, a girl who counted everything that could be counted, a woman who fought for her dreams in spite of the racial and gender discrimination she faced. After fighting against double segregation for being a woman and an African American in a world of white men, she said: “ I don’t have a feeling of inferiority. Katherine Johnson has been described as a true genius with a great vocation for mathematics, but also as an intrepid person, an example of courage and humility. She continued working on other missions until her retirement in 1986, receiving numerous awards and honors for her exceptional work and contributions to the U.S. Moreover, her calculations were key to the success of the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, which landed humankind on the Moon. The same year, her skills helped John Glenn become the first American to orbit the Earth. Later, in 1962, when computers began to be used for these types of calculations, Katherine assumed a supervisory role. Shepherd, the first American in space, to make his space journey in 1961. She participated in NASA’s Mercury Project, performing by hand the calculations that allowed Alan B. There was not, so she began attending those meetings and, over time, her persistence, math skills and quality work built her a reputation at NACA/NASA. Initially they refused, to which she challenged whether there was a law that prohibited it. However, she was curious and had questions, so she asked to be able to attend meetings with the engineers so that she could join the discussions. Her job was to perform calculations and checks for aeronautical engineers, a quiet job done by a quiet group of women. At that time, African Americans were separated from white people: they had segregated cafeteria tables, bus seats, bathrooms and were prohibited from mixing whatsoever. Sometime later, she learned that the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), predecessor of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), was looking for African American women for calculation tasks in the Department of Guidance and Navigation, and decided to sign up. As a teacher of mathematics, music and French, she earned less money than her white peers and had to hide her marriage, since married women were not allowed to teach. Hence, once she finished her studies, she had no choice but to work under the racist and discriminatory restrictions of the time. Regardless of her credentials, one of the only options available to Katherine as an African American woman was to teach. There, she graduated at just 14 years old and began her higher education at West Virginia State College, where she earned her degrees in mathematics and French at the age of 18. Her family decided to move to Institute, where the West Virginia Colored Institute for African Americans was located. However, she grew up in a time and place where there were laws of racial segregation, which prevented African Americans from studying beyond the eighth grade. A girl who, since she was little, liked counting everything: the steps she took, the dishes she washed, the stars she saw … Katherine demonstrated her talent and passion for mathematics from a very young age. Credit: NASA, restored by Adam Cuerden (via Wikimedia Commons).Ĭan you imagine having a dream as a child that you are forbidden to pursue? That was the story of Katherine Johnson, an African American girl born in 1918 in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia. Katherine Johnson, NASA employee, in 1966.

Katherine johnson nasa address today