![]() We also hope they are inspired by her persistence, strength tenacity and fearlessness. We assisted in researching the HBCUs that were so much a fond part of her experience, as well as background research on one of the professors who greatly influenced her.”Īsked what message they hope readers take away, Hylick and Moore said, “We hope readers will see how important education was to her and her family. Katherine Johnson, who hand-crunched the numbers for Americas first manned space flight, is 100 today NASA renamed a facility for Johnson in February 2019. We did some historical research to put her story in context of the times in which she lived. We found some handwritten notes and letters. Of course, we had our own memories of her stories. “We had a wealth of good detailed stories and information. Of the research they did to complete the book, Hylick and Moore said they drew from numerous interviews Johnson had done, both before and after the Hidden Figures film release. This book is more of a personal family story.” Of the numerous awards she received, Johnson writes, “If I’ve done anything in my life to deserve any of this, it is because I had great parents who taught me simple but powerful lessons that sustained me in the most challenging times.” They all completed high school and college at West Virginia State (College) University. Asked in an interview why it was important to share her life story in her own words, Johnson’s daughters Hylick and Moore said, “She really wanted to pay tribute to her parents, who had sacrificed so much to educate her and her siblings. Johnson began working on the book about a year before she passed away. Of receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2017 from President Barack Obama, Johnson writes that it was “one of the greatest honors of my life,” though she wished that her fellow NASA coworkers, Dorothy Vaughan, who supervised the “West Computers,” the segregated section of Black women mathematicians at NASA’s Langley Research Center, and Eunice Smith and Mary Jackson, had lived long enough to enjoy similar public acclaim. And I felt blessed to be her,” she writes. It was enough for me that I knew when he needed ‘the girl’ to boost his confidence that he could entrust his life to the heavens and get him back home, I was that girl. Who knows? It didn’t matter to me then, and it doesn’t now. “Many have asked me over the years whether John Glenn ever knew my name. Of the results of her efforts, Johnson took pride in having played a key role. The computer had figured it out, but I was the error checker, the last stop.” So I quickly assembled my meager supplies and got busy on my calculator, working out every equation by hand for the trajectory of a mission that was scheduled to include three orbits. “This was a major assignment, but I had done this long before the computer made it seem simple. Johnson died on February 24, 2020.Of watching the Friendship 7 launch in February 1962, in which John Glenn had insisted that Johnson approve the calculations before the flight (instructing, “get the girl to check the numbers”), Johnson writes the task took a day and a half. Johnson also worked on the space shuttle program. Johnson was also part of the team that calculated where and when the rocket would be launched that would send the first three men to the Moon. He asked to have Johnson double check the computer’s calculations. However, before he left the ground, he wanted to make sure the electronic computer had planned the flight correctly. ![]() In 1962 John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth. She authored or coauthored 26 research reports during her career. ![]() It was the first time a woman in her division received credit as an author of a research report. ![]() The year before she had coauthored a paper with an engineer. She calculated the flight path for the spacecraft that put the first U.S astronaut in space in 1961. That changed when NACA became NASA in 1958.Īt NASA Johnson was a member of the Space Task Group. They were forced to use separate bathrooms and dining facilities. The West Computers were segregated from white workers. They studied data from tests and provided mathematical computations that were essential to the success of the U.S. The West Computers, as they were known, were a group of African American women. In 1953 Johnson began work at the West Area Computing unit of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).
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