Katherine Johnson did trajectory analysis for Alan Shepard's mission in 1961 and John Glenn's mission in 1962. Although described as a behind-the-scenes sort of worker, she helped many people get promoted or become supervisors. "She discovered that occasionally it was something as simple as a lack of a couple of courses, or perhaps the location of the individual, or perhaps the assignments given them, and of course, the ever present glass ceiling that most women seemed to encounter," Champine wrote.Īfter 30 years with NACA and NASA (at which point she was an engineer), Jackson decided to become an equal opportunity specialist to help women and minorities. She also tried to help other women advance in their career, according to the biography, by advising them on what educational opportunities to pursue. Her job was to extract the relevant data from flight tests. Jackson began her career as a schoolteacher, and had several other jobs before joining NACA.Īs a computer with the all-black West Area Computing section, she was involved with wind tunnels and flight experiments. She graduated with high marks from high school and received a bachelor of science degree from the Hampton Institute in Mathematics and Physical Science, according to a biography written by Gloria R. "Glenn's flight was a success, and marked a turning point in the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union in space," NASA says.īut "when asked to name her greatest contribution to space exploration, Katherine Johnson talks about the calculations that helped synch Project Apollo's Lunar Lander with the moon-orbiting Command and Service Module," according to NASA.Mary Jackson was a successful NASA engineer and advocate for women and minorities in the field. "If she says they're good,'" Johnson remembered Glenn saying, "then I'm ready to go." So Glenn asked engineers to "get the girl," referring to Johnson, to run the computer equations by hand. The 1962 flight required the construction of a "worldwide communications network" linking tracking stations around the world to computers in Washington, D.C., Cape Canaveral, and Bermuda.īut astronauts weren't keen on "putting their lives in the care of the electronic calculating machines, which were prone to hiccups and blackouts," according to NASA.
She was best-known though for work that greatly contributed to the first American orbital spaceflight, piloted by John Glenn. She was also the first woman in the Flight Research Division to receive credit as an author of a research report for her work with Ted Skopinski on detailing the equations describing an orbital spaceflight. In her role there, she did trajectory analysis for Alan Shepard's 1961 mission Freedom 7, which was America's first human spaceflight, according to NASA. Johnson began working at NASA's predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics' in 1953 at the Langley laboratory in Virginia. More from NBC News: 2nd person struck and killed by Mardi Gras parade float in New Orleans Probe into abuse at America's oldest deaf school finds 'appalling truths' Daredevil 'Mad' Mike Hughes dies in homemade rocket launch The film also stars Octavia Spencer as mathematician Dorothy Vaughan and Janelle Monáe as engineer Mary Jackson. Henson in the Oscar nominated 2016 film "Hidden Figures" about trailblazing black women whose work at NASA was integral during the Space Race. Personal Loans for 670 Credit Score or Lower Personal Loans for 580 Credit Score or Lower Best Debt Consolidation Loans for Bad Credit
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