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“‘If she says they’re good, then I’m ready to go,’” Johnson remembered Glenn saying. He was skeptical of the computers that calculated his spacecraft’s trajectory, so he told engineers to “get the girl” and compare Johnson’s handwritten calculations to the computer’s. John Glenn requested her help before his orbit around Earth in 1962. She co-authored a paper on the safety of orbital landings in 1960 – the first time a woman in the Flight Research Division received credit for a report.ĭespite often being the only woman in briefings, she quickly gained notice for her accuracy. She was tasked with performing trajectory analysis for Alan Shepherd’s 1961 mission, the first American human spaceflight. NASA renames facility for real-life 'Hidden Figures' hero Katherine Johnson Katherine Johnson, 1918-2020 /Vkp0MgfwtH- NASA STEM February 24, 2020īut midway through the ’50s, the space race between the US and the Soviet Union began to intensify. And there will always, always be mathematics." Some things will drop out of the public eye and will go away, but there will always be science, engineering and technology. She started in 1953 in the facility’s segregated wing for women before she was quickly transferred to the Flight Research Division, where she remained for several years. She was one of several black researchers with college degrees hired for the agency’s aeronautical lab through the initiative. She started her career as a teacher but had her sights set on mathematical research.įollowing an executive order that prohibited racial discrimination in the defense industry, Johnson was hired at NACA, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and NASA’s predecessor. Her preternatural talent for math was quickly evident, and she became one of three black students chosen to integrate West Virginia’s graduate schools, according to her NASA biography. Johnson was born in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, in 1918. Her work went largely unrecognized until the release of 2016’s “Hidden Figures,” a film portrayal of Johnson’s accomplishments while the space agency was still largely segregated. The NASA women who inspired 'Hidden Figures' will get Congressional gold medals NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson was one of the black women to have made spaceflights possible for US crews.