Person · 1918–2020
Katherine Johnson
The NASA mathematician whose calculations sent Americans into orbit and to the Moon — one of the "hidden figures" of the space race.
A long-hidden giant of [[black-science]].
Katherine Johnson calculated the trajectories that sent Americans into space, doing so with a precision so trusted that astronauts refused to fly without her sign-off. Born on August 26, 1918, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, she showed such mathematical genius as a child that she completed eighth grade by age ten and graduated college summa cum laude at eighteen. In 1939 she became one of the first Black women admitted to West Virginia University's graduate mathematics program. She joined NASA's predecessor agency in 1953, working as one of the "human computers" — Black women whose manual calculations underpinned the early space program. Her orbital mechanics work was critical to Alan Shepard's 1961 spaceflight, the first American crewed mission, and to John Glenn's 1962 orbital flight — Glenn famously refused to launch until Johnson personally verified the computer's calculations. She also contributed calculations for the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. Long uncredited, her story reached wide audiences through the 2016 book and film Hidden Figures. President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015. Johnson died on February 24, 2020, at age 101.
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- part of·ThreadScience & Invention
NASA mathematician whose orbital-mechanics calculations were critical to the first US crewed spaceflights, including John Glenn's orbit and the Apollo 11 Moon landing.