THE INTERSTELLAR
Virginia State's president, Dr. John W. Davis, to be
MIND COLOR A
KATHERINE JOHNSON’S
BIOGRAPHY
Being born as a black woman in the early
20 century, Katherine Johnson faced the toxic
th
stereotypes of sexism and colorism. From a hidden
figure to a modern one, Johnson’s interstellar
brilliance in Mathematics, despite prejudices in
color and gender, has come to light, ultimately
thinning the fine line in these prejudices.
Many individuals would consider one of
their most memorable experiences in life to be
chosen as one of the three Black students to
integrate West Virginia's graduate institutions, but
for Katherine Johnson, it was only one of many
milestones that distinguished her long and
exceptional life. She was born in White Sulphur
Springs, West Virginia, in 1918, and thanks to her
insatiable curiosity and math prowess, she advanced
through the schools. By the age of 13, she was a
high school student at West Virginia State College,
a historically black institution. When she was 18,
she enrolled in college, where she excelled in the
math program and found a mentor in professor W.
The third African American to receive a Ph.D. in
mathematics was W. Schieffelin Claytor. She
obtained a teaching position at a Virginia public
black school after graduating with the highest
honors in 1937.
According to NASA, Mary Katherine Jackson "may have been the only
black female aeronautical engineer in the field" in the 1950s. Singer and
actress Janelle Monáe play her in the film Hidden Figures. Bob Nye/Courtesy
of NASA Langley
She and two males were chosen by West
the first black students awarded slots at the state's
prestigious university, West Virginia University,
when West Virginia decided to covertly integrate its
graduate institutions in 1939. She quit her job as a
teacher and enrolled in the graduate program in
mathematics. However, she made the decision to
stop studying at the end of the first semester in
order to raise a family with her first husband, James
Goble. When her three daughters were older, she
went back to teaching, but it wasn't until 1952 that a
relative informed her about openings at the West
Area Computing section of the NACA's Langley
laboratory, which was run by fellow West Virginian
Dorothy Vaughan and was exclusively comprised of
black employees. In order to take advantage of the
opportunity, Katherine and her husband made the
decision to relocate their family to Newport News,
Virginia. Katherine started working at Langley in
the summer of 1953. Katherine's temporary post
quickly changed to a permanent one after Dorothy
Vaughan assigned her to a project in the Flight
Research Division's Maneuver Loads Branch just
two weeks into her employment there. She worked
on the investigation of a plane disaster brought on
by wake turbulence over the following four years
while also evaluating data from flying testing. In
December 1956, just as she was finishing this
painting, her husband passed away from cancer.
The Soviet satellite Sputnik's launch in 1957
altered both history and Johnson's life. She
contributed some math in 1957 for the publication
Notes on Space Technology, which was a
compilation of lectures delivered by engineers in the
Flight Research Division and the Pilotless Aircraft
Research Division in 1958. (PARD). The Space
Task Group, the NACA's first official venture into
space travel, was primarily composed of engineers
from those organizations. When the NACA changed
its name to NASA later that year, Johnson, who had
collaborated with many of them since moving to
Langley, "came along with the program." For
Freedom 7, America's first human spaceflight, led
by Alan Shepard in May 1961, she performed
trajectory analysis. Determination of Azimuth
Angle at Burnout for Placing a Satellite Over a
Selected Earth Position, a study outlining the Feb. 24, 2020 marked her passing. "Our
equations characterizing an orbital spaceflight in NASA family is saddened to learn that Katherine
which the landing position of the spacecraft is Johnson died away this morning at the age of 101.
defined, was coauthored by her and engineer Ted She was an American hero and her pioneering
Skopinski in 1960. It was the first time a female legacy will never be forgotten," said NASA
researcher in the Flight Research Division had been Administrator James Bridenstine.
acknowledged as the report's author.
Johnson was asked to perform the work for
which she would be most known in 1962, as NASA
got ready for John Glenn's orbital expedition. A
global communications network connecting
tracking stations across the world to IBM computers
in Washington, Cape Canaveral, Florida, and
Bermuda had to be built due to the intricacy of the
orbital journey. The orbital equations that would
control the trajectory of the capsule during Glenn's
Friendship 7 mission from launch to splashdown
had been programmed into the computers, but the
astronauts were hesitant to entrust their lives to the
electronic computing devices because they were
prone to glitches and blackouts. Glenn instructed
engineers to "get the girl"—Johnson—to manually
run the same numbers through the same equations
that had been programmed into the computer on her
desktop mechanical calculator as part of the
preflight checklist. Katherine Johnson recalls the
astronaut saying, "If she says they're good, then I'm
ready to go." Glenn's voyage was a success and
signaled a turning point in the space race between
the United States and the Soviet Union.
Johnson would mention the calculations that
assisted in synchronizing Project Apollo's Lunar
Module with the lunar-orbiting Command and
Service Module when asked to name her greatest
contribution to space exploration. Along with 26
research publications, she also contributed to the
Space Shuttle and the Earth Resources Technology
Satellite (ERTS, subsequently called Landsat). She
spent 33 years at Langley before retiring in 1986.
She said, "I adored going to work every single day."
Johnson received the Presidential Medal of
Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, from
President Barack Obama in 2015, adding yet
another remarkable accomplishment to her
extensive list.