Katherine Johnson, NASA "Hidden Figure" who calculated orbital mechanics

KATHERINE COLEMAN GOBLE JOHNSON (born August 26, 1918) is a mathematician, whose calculations of orbital mechanics at NASA were instrumental in the success of the manned spaceflight program. She was also a pioneer in the application of computers in space flight. Her work added to the success of Project Mercury, the Apollo flights to the moon, and the Space Shuttle program. She also worked on the planned mission to Mars. Born in White Sulphur Springs, WV, Johnson displayed signs of an extraordinary intellect early in life. When she was 10 years old, she attended West Virginia State College and graduated summa cum laude in 1937 with degrees in mathematics and French. She began teaching public school at the age of 18 and briefly attended West Virginia University to seek a graduate degree, becoming the first African-American woman to attend the school’s graduate program. She left the program after she married and began to have a family.

In 1952, she began working for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) as a “computer” in the Guidance and Navigation Department. NACA required African-American women to work, eat, and use restrooms apart from their white colleagues. Johnson began to make incursions into the all-male enclave of the Flight Research Division when a temporary assignment became permanent thanks to her talent in analytic geometry. NASA desegregated the organization in 1958, but sexism was still pervasive. It was that year that Johnson became an aerospace technologist at the Spacecraft Controls Branch and started to calculate trajectories, launch windows, and navigation charts for space flights. Despite the sexism at the time, Johnson’s work was highly regarded. So much so, that astronaut John Glenn insisted she confirm computer calculations by hand before his historic orbital mission.

She is the co-author of 26 scientific papers, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama, and had the Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., named in her honor. The 2016 movie, Hidden Figures, was based on a book about her, and other African-American women STEM pioneers, at NASA.