![]() She became a household name in 2016 following the best-selling book Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly and its Oscar- nominated film adaptation. President Barack Obama awarded Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 (Credit: )ĭespite her achievements, Johnson remained mostly unknown until 2015, when President Barack Obama awarded her the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. ![]() Johnson, who attributes her success to her assertive personality, went on to author several more research papers, including trajectory calculations for the first moon landing and the space shuttle program. The 1960 paper, written with engineer Ted Skopinski, which allowed NASA to determine when to launch the spacecraft and when to begin its reentry, was the first technical report by a woman in NASA's elite flight research division. "You tell me when you want it and where you want it to land, and I'll do it backwards and tell you when to take off." "I said, 'Let me do it,'" she recalled in a 2008 NASA interview. ![]() Never one to step away from a challenge, Johnson volunteered for the job. However, manually calculating the trajectory for John Glenn's 1962 orbital flight, which circled the Earth three times, was a little more complicated. Shepard Jr.'s 1961 historic suborbital flight, since the spacecraft did not enter orbit. The calculations were relatively straightforward for American astronaut Alan B. Johnson was the first woman to author a report in NASA's flight research division (Credit: NASA) The research paper identified that the biggest challenge would be computing a flight trajectory to ensure astronauts returning to Earth would splash into the ocean close to the Navy vessel stationed to extract them from the water. Johnson's first project, completed in collaboration with dozens of colleagues, was a 600-page technical report outlining the mathematical calculations of spaceflight from rocket propulsion to orbital mechanics and heat protection. "I don't wear my feelings on my shoulder." she explained. Even blatant racism, such as when a white colleague stood up to leave as she sat next to him, did not seem to faze Johnson. "I did not feel much discrimination, but then that's me," she recalled in a 1992 NASA oral history interview. However, that did not seem to bother Johnson. Not surprisingly, the women faced both racism and sexism from their mostly white male counterparts. The math prodigy was one of five African American women assigned to do computing in the guidance and navigation department at the Langley Research Center in Virginia. "You had a mission, and you worked on it." Johnson at work at her desk at NASA Langley Research in 1962 (Credit: NASA) "Everybody there was doing research," she recalled in later years. Johnson started her working life as a teacher before joining the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics - the agency that would become NASA - in 1953. A gifted student, she graduated from high school at 14 and earned a dual degree in math and French from West Virginia State College. Johnson, who was born in West Virginia in 1918, was fascinated by numbers from a young age. The human "computer" is credited with codifying the mathematical principles that remain at the core of space travel to this day. Katherine Johnson, a brilliant mathematician who was instrumental in helping NASA send Americans into orbit in 1961, and later to the moon, died on Monday, February 24, 2020. Katherine Johnson was one of five African American mathematicians hired by NASA in the 1950s (Credit: YouTube screen capture)
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