Naomi Zimmermann
Katherine Johnson
Katherine Goble Johnson is an African American mathematician and physicist who worked at NASA during the 1960s and 70s and made critical contributions to several of their space projects. You may know her from the recent critically acclaimed film Hidden Figures, where the story of her contributions to NASA as well as those of two other women, Dorothy Vaughn, and Mary Jackson.
Katherine was born in 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. From a young age Katherine showed enormous curiosity and cognitive abilities which allowed her to skip grades in school. At 13 she enrolled in high school at West Virginia State College, and by 18 she was enrolled in the college. She graduated with the highest honors in 1937, being mentored by W. Clayton, a groundbreaking African American himself who was the third black individual to earn a PhD in math.
Two years later in 1939, Katherine was chosen and was the first woman to enroll in West Virginia University as part of the inconspicuous desegregation of universities in West Virginia. Katherine moved to Newport News in 1953 in order to work at an an all black computing section at NACA (the precursor to NASA), which was led by Dorothy Vaughan.
The Cold War dramatically changed the direction of Katherines career after NASA scrambled to keep up in the space race. The 1957 Sputnik launch humiliated the nation and there was enormous will for the US be able to surpass these achievements. She provided the math for different assignments that the Space Task Group undertook throughout the years, including analyzing the trajectories for Alan Shepard's Freedom 7 mission in 1961, which was America’s first human space flight.
Katherine as portrayed by Taraji P. Hensen in the movie Hidden Figures.
Katherine is even better known for her work on John Glenn's Friendship 7 mission. The human capsule would circle the earth in an elliptical movement and eventually shift to a parabolic pattern for it to land. The orbital calculations were so complex that they resulted in an international communication network which linked IBM computers to different tracking devices stationed worldwide. The IBM computer calculated the orbital equations of flight and the landing areas(go no go areas), but John Glenn asked for Katherine to verify the landing coordinates as the computers weren’t always reliable. John Glenn’s Friendship 7 mission was successfully completed which proved that the human body could survive in microgravity and allowed for NASA to make further space advancements. Furthermore, the success changed the nature of the Space Race competition.
Links:
https://history.nasa.gov/friendship7/
Great Post Noami! It was really awesome to learn about Katherine Johnson especially because there was a movie in which she was one of the main characters. It was specific yet concise about the important aspects! Very interesting to know about everything that Katherine Johnson contributed to especially since they are such a big part of American history.
ReplyDeleteWow, fascinating post! I fount especially interesting the role that the Cold War played in furthering her career. Really cool to see how national trends influenced individual people.
ReplyDelete