Today Katherina Johnson has passed away at the blessed age of 101yr.
Maybe not widely known, she was one of three Afro American Women who made the first manned spaceflights possible. Almost entirely by hand they did the calculations the astronauts trusted enough to proceed with their mission. Because the astronauts put more faith in those women than in the computers of NASA.
They made a semi-factual movie about these women around 2017. It’s called “Hidden Figures” and while it has a little Hollywood made up drama, it is basically a very good account of what these pioneering “human computers” did for the advancement of NASA and space exploration. I really enjoyed the movie. The new orbital calculations building at Langely was named after her. She also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest medal awarded to civilians, several years ago.
Yeh, I just saw the news today…
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Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson (August 26, 1918 – February 24, 2020) was an American mathematician whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. crewed spaceflights. During her 35-year career at NASA and its predecessor, she earned a reputation for mastering complex manual calculations and helped pioneer the use of computers to perform the tasks. The space agency noted her “historical role as one of the first African-American women to work as a NASA scientist”.
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Johnson’s work included calculating trajectories, launch windows and emergency return paths for Project Mercury spaceflights, including those for astronauts Alan Shepard, the first American in space, and John Glenn, the first American in orbit, and rendezvous paths for the Apollo Lunar Module and command module on flights to the Moon. Her calculations were also essential to the beginning of the Space Shuttle program, and she worked on plans for a mission to Mars. In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was portrayed by Taraji P. Henson as a lead character in the 2016 film Hidden Figures. In 2019, Johnson was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
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Quite an amazing life.
An amazing women. Loved the movie.