February 1962. NASA Langley Research Center.
The sounds of clacking typewriters, mumbling mathematicians and engineers, and scribbling pens fill the ears of astronaut John Glenn. Days away from leaving Earth in a space shuttle on the Friendship 7 mission, he paces the floor, anxious. A network of international tracking stations and IBM computers would supposedly perform the correct calculations to ensure Glenn’s landing was a success. Yet, he did not trust the primitive computers, which were prone to miscalculations and errors. What if a mishap occurred while he was plummeting towards the Earth at speeds of over 10,000 miles per hour? He was putting his life on the line for the great Space Race, and he needed certainty he would live. He needed calculations he could trust.
“Get the girl,” he asks the engineers. “And if she says the computer is right, I’ll take it.’ ”
Shortly after, a woman by the name of Katherine Johnson walks in, sits at a desk, and begins meticulously performing all of the exorbitant orbital calculations by hand. Two days later, Johnson sets her pen down and nods to Glenn, who announces to the engineers that only then was he ready for his mission.
Katherine Johnson was born a genius with an undeniable talent for mathematics and an affinity for numbers. She told NASA in a 2015 interview, “I counted everything. I counted the steps to the road, the steps up to church, the number of dishes and silverware I washed … anything that could be counted, I did.” As she grew up in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, she advanced rapidly through school and entered high school at the age of 10, graduating at the age of 13. Shortly thereafter, she attended West Virginia State College, obtaining degrees in both Mathematics and French at the age of 18. She worked as a teacher for several years before the president of West Virginia University invited her and two black men to attend the college as the first Black graduate students. Though Johnson initially accepted, she dropped out a year later so that she could continue raising her three daughters.
In 1952, a relative informed Johnson that the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or NACA, was hiring women to perform calculations and hand-check equations for the NACA aerospace engineers. Though the facility was segregated, Black women did have a chance at employment. Johnson excitedly applied for a position on the team, and a year later, she was hired as a “computer” at the Langley Research Center. Though the facility was segregated and she had to work, eat, and use restrooms separately from White employees, she assertively pushed past barriers of gender and race. “When [male employees] had briefings, I asked permission to go. And they said, ‘Well, the girls don’t usually go.’ and I said, ‘Well, is there a law?’ They said, ‘No.’ So then my boss said, ‘Let her go,’” she told WHRO in 2011. Dorothy Vaughan, her supervisor, admired Johnson’s intelligence and work ethic and quickly made her temporary position permanent. Johnson worked diligently for four years, sometimes spending long nights in the office. Even after the death of her first husband, Jimmy Goble, in 1956, she still continued working hard as a NACA mathematician and found comfort in her work.
Two years later, in 1958, the Space Race against the Soviet Union had begun and NACA was converted to NASA. A favorite of the engineers she worked for, Johnson continued her employment as a mathematician. One of her first tasks was to hand-calculate the trajectory of the Friendship 7 for Alan Shepard’s mission to become the first American to enter space. Afterward, she and her colleague Ted Skopinsky coauthored a report on the calculations for an orbital space flight: the first report from the Flight Research Division to credit the work of a woman.
In 1962, this report would come in handy for NASA as they sought to send John Glenn into orbit around Earth. Johnson’s work, and her stringent checking of all the necessary equations for the flight, ensured that the mission was a success. She rose to President Kennedy’s challenge of sending an American to the moon, working tirelessly at the orbital calculations for the Apollo 11 mission. During her 33 year career, she authored or co-authored a total of 13 research reports and computed crucial work for some of America’s most groundbreaking space missions.
President Obama presented Katherine with the Medal of Freedom in 2015. Her story was also honored by Margot Lee Shetterly in the 2016 novel “Hidden Figures” and a biopic of the same name. In 2020, Katherine Johnson passed away peacefully at the age of 101, leaving behind the legacy of an American hero.
Works Cited
“Astronaut John Glenn and the Friendship 7 Mission.” National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives and Records Administration, https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/friendship-7-transcript.
Fox, Margalit. “Katherine Johnson Dies at 101; Mathematician Broke Barriers at NASA.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 24 Feb. 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/science/katherine-johnson-dead.html.
Koffi, Alexandre Tano Kan. “Katherine Johnson, the First African-American Woman to Conquer Space.” AfroScience, 14 July 2019, https://afroscience.org/2019/07/14/katherine-johnson-the-first-african-american-woman-to-conquer-space/.
Lewis, Russell. “Katherine Johnson, NASA Mathematician and an Inspiration for ‘Hidden Figures,’ Dies.” NPR, NPR, 24 Feb. 2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/02/24/517784975/katherine-johnson-nasa-mathematician-and-an-inspiration-for-hidden-figures-dies.
Loff, Sarah. “Katherine Johnson Biography.” NASA, NASA, 22 Nov. 2016, https://www.nasa.gov/content/katherine-johnson-biography.
Stauss, Joanna. “Katherine Johnson: Pioneering NASA Mathematician.” Space.com, Space, 27 Feb. 2020, https://www.space.com/katherine-johnson.html.