Katherine Johnson
Katherine Johnson was a NASA mathematician who played a key role during the Space Race in various NASA flights, perhaps most notably calculating the trajectory needed to get the Apollo 11 flight to and from the moon. Johnson surmounted social barriers and racial inequality as a black woman working for NASA in the 1950s and ‘ 60s. Her impressive career was featured in the book and movie “Hidden Figures” in 2016.
Born 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, Johnson was the youngest of four brothers. Johnson’s hometown didn’t give black children public education beyond eighth grade, and her family relocated 120 miles away (193 kilometers) so she could attend high school. She graduated high school at just 14 and college at 18, from the historically black West Virginia State College — securing degrees in both mathematics and French. Johnson was admitted into the graduate math program at West Virginia University after teaching for a few years, and in 1939 she became the first black woman to attend the school.
She quit to raise her three daughters one year after her coursework. Instead, in 1952, a friend told her of an exciting new opportunity: The National Aeronautics Advisory Committee (NACA), NASA’s precursor, recruited black women to solve math problems. Johnson submitted forthwith. She was soon employed at the Langley Research Center as a “computer,” with the job of conducting and reviewing flight test calculations. NACA became NASA in 1958, and the Space Race commenced.
Johnson’s interest was geometry, which helped to measure spacecraft trajectories. She realized that the trajectory would be a parabolic, a form of symmetrical curve, for NASA’s 1961 Mercury mission. So she wasn’t dissuaded when NASA wanted the capsule to descend at a certain place. Subsequent orbital flights were more difficult, with more uncertainties including the Earth’s orientation and rotation, so Johnson used a celestial simulation tool to do her calculations. Johnson was credited with estimating the trajectory for the pioneering flight of Alan Shepard, during which he became the first American to arrive at space. She also verified the trajectory of bringing the first American round the Earth into space. Around this time, NASA had started using electronic computers to accomplish these tasks, but the devices could be a little temperamental. Astronaut John Glenn had asked that Johnson manually recheck the calculations by hand before his Friendship 7 flight. According to sources, Glenn said that “if she says they’re good, then I’m ready to go”.
The next challenge was to send astronauts to the moon, and calculations made by Johnson helped synchronize the Apollo 11 lunar lander with the moon-orbiting command and crew capsule to get the astronauts back to Earth. She also helped immensely on the Apollo 13 mission, offering backup process which helped to ensure a safe return of the crew, in case their craft failed. She later helped develop the space shuttle program and satellite Earth resources, and she co-authored 26 research reports before retiring in 1986. Johnson spent the following years discussing her remarkable career with students and inspiring them to pursue STEM education. In 2015, President Barack Obama honored Johnson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian distinction for America. And in 2016, a building at the NASA Langley facility at which Johnson worked was renamed in her honor to the Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility.
