10 questions · Society & Everyday
Katherine Johnson, born in 1918 in rural West Virginia, is a mathematical prodigy: at ten she is already attending high school, and by 18 she has graduated from college with top marks in mathematics. But as a Black woman in the segregated America of the 1930s, most doors are closed to her; she becomes a teacher at first, because a career in science simply isn't on offer. The turning point comes in 1953: she is hired by NACA (the forerunner of NASA) as a "human computer", in a race-segregated section where Black women mathematicians check the engineers' calculations. Katherine stands out for her precision and her questions, pushes her way into meetings normally reserved for men, and makes herself indispensable. When Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space in 1961, the trajectory calculation is hers. Her most famous moment comes in 1962: John Glenn is to become the first American to orbit the Earth, and for the first time the flight path is worked out by electronic computers: but Glenn doesn't trust the machines. "Get the girl to check the numbers," he reportedly asked; if Katherine Johnson confirmed the computer's figures, he was ready to fly. She recalculates the orbit by hand and Glenn flies. Later she also contributes to the calculations for the Apollo Moon landing and the Space Shuttle. For decades her contribution remained unknown to the public. Recognition came late: in 2015 President Obama awarded her the Medal of Freedom, and in 2016 the film 'Hidden Figures' made her story, and that of her colleagues, world-famous. Katherine Johnson died in 2020 at the age of 101: a woman whose numbers carried people into space and safely home again.
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mathematician (trajectories)
She started as a "human computer" checking the engineers' calculations.
💡 Did you know? Johnson's precise hand calculations of trajectories were so reliable that astronauts trusted them more than the early computers.
John Glenn
In 1962 he was to become the first American to orbit the Earth; he did not trust the electronic computers.
💡 Did you know? "Get the girl to check the numbers," Glenn reportedly said: only then was he ready to fly.
Alan Shepard's spaceflight
It was the first crewed US spaceflight of the Mercury programme.
💡 Did you know? Johnson calculated the trajectory for Alan Shepard, the first American in space: a milestone of the space race.
human computers
They performed complex calculations by hand before electronic computers took over.
💡 Did you know? Before electronic computers, mathematicians like Johnson were called simply „human computers“ at NASA.
racial segregation
In the early years Johnson, being Black, had to use segregated toilets and break rooms: despite her indispensable work.
💡 Did you know? Black employees had to use separate bathrooms and canteens: rules Johnson eventually defied.
Apollo 11 (Moon landing)
She worked on the trajectories to the Moon and back; later she also contributed to the Space Shuttle programme.
💡 Did you know? For Apollo 11, the first Moon landing in 1969, Johnson too checked the crucial calculations.
Hidden Figures
The film also tells the story of her colleagues Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson.
💡 Did you know? The film „Hidden Figures“ (2016) made Johnson and her Black colleagues famous worldwide; they had been almost forgotten.
Presidential Medal of Freedom
It is the highest civilian honour in the United States.
💡 Did you know? In 2015 President Obama presented the then 97-year-old Johnson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
101 years old
Katherine Johnson lived to 101 and saw a global public pay her long-overdue recognition.
💡 Did you know? As a child she was so gifted that she was attending high school by the age of ten.
Foto: NASA · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Katherine Johnson
Katherine Johnson (1918 to 2020) was an American NASA mathematician whose calculations made the first American spaceflights possible.
💡 Did you know? In 2019 NASA named a computing facility after Johnson, for decades her crucial contribution had been little known.
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