She performed calculations for the historic 1969 Apollo 11 trip to the moon, and the following year, when Apollo 13 experienced a malfunction in space, her contributions to contingency procedures helped ensure its safe return. While the work of electronic computers became more important at NASA, Katherine remained highly valuable for her incredible accuracy. But to complete the job, Katherine Johnson was still summoned to check the work of the machines, providing the go-ahead to propel John Glenn into successful orbit in 1962. This involved far more difficult calculations, to account for the gravitational pulls of celestial bodies, and by then NASA had begun using electronic computers. The next challenge was to send a man in orbit around Earth. You tell me when you want it and where you want it to land, and I'll do it backwards and tell you when to take off.' As a result, the task of plotting the path for Alan Shepard's 1961 journey to space, the first in American history, fell on her shoulders. When NASA wanted the capsule to come down at a certain place, they were trying to work out when it should start. The Space Calculationsįor Katherine Johnson, calculating space flight came down to the basics of geometry. The following year she married decorated Navy and Army officer James A.
Katherine johnson nasa images how to#
In 1958, after NACA was reformed into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Katherine was one of a group of people tasked with determining how to get a human into space and back. Katherine applied, and the following year she was accepted for a position at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.Īfter only two weeks, Katherine was transferred from the African American computing pool to Langley's flight research division, where she talked her way into meetings and earned additional responsibilities. Then, in 1952, Katherine learned that the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was hiring African American women to serve as "computers", which meant people who performed and checked calculations for technological developments. The following year, Katherine became one of three students to desegregate West Virginia University's graduate school in Morgantown, but she never herself finished the programme there, as she became pregnant with her first child.īeginning in the late 1930s, she taught math and French at schools in Virginia and West Virginia. At just 18, she graduated summa cum laude with degrees in mathematics and French. She enrolled at West Virginia State College (now West Virginia State University) in Institute, West Virginia. Katherine Johnson was born Katherine Coleman on August 26, 1918, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. Katherine Coleman becomes Katherine Johnson Her story is told in the film ‘Hidden Figures’, loosely based on the book ‘Hidden Figures: The Story of the African-American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race’ by Margot Lee Shetterly – if you haven’t watched the film or read the book yet, we thoroughly recommend them.
This week, as it is also World Space Week, we celebrate Katherine Johnson, who performed the complex calculations that enabled humans to successfully achieve space flight.
October is Black History Month, and we’re celebrating by showcasing brilliant diverse men and women who were influential in technology and digital development.
0 kommentar(er)
