“Tell me where you want the man to land, and I’ll tell you where to send him up,” she said upon joining the Project Mercury program. Johnson also, in this case, literally worked backward. As a Black woman in segregated America, she embodied the adage about Ginger Rogers - who did everything Fred Astaire did, only backward and in heels - in the sense that she had to overcome countless barriers to win a respected place among a largely white, male NASA staff. Johnson at that time was a “human computer,” a job title for people - usually women - assigned to do the complex calculations underlying scientific disciplines such as astronomy and navigation. Had she not been brought into the attention of popular culture, her achievements would likely never have been known outside a few colleagues and historians - and we would all be the poorer for it.“Let me do it,” Katherine Johnson famously said when, in the late 1950s, her NASA colleagues were looking for a mathematician to join the team working to launch the first American into space. Johnson was a remarkable mind and person whose achievements went for too long unnoticed. These women, like Johnson's colleagues Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughn, not only challenged the racist and sexist zeitgeist of the time, but very simply helped America achieve what is perhaps its most historically remarkable achievement - the Apollo program - but also to aid in the invention and definition of multiple industries. She more than anyone would have been aware of the others in similar positions who, while they may not have been quite as instrumental or prominent in the moment - John Glenn famously asked before a flight that a mechanical computer's calculations be checked by "the girl," meaning Johnson - were nonetheless indispensable and quite as hidden. Receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama in 2015 was certainly a welcome perk.īut Johnson may have been wary of an over-concentration of credit. Although Johnson always said her colleagues at NASA were kind and professional, there were nevertheless systematic and deep-seated biases against her at every step of her journey.Īfter the film's release and acclaim, she treated her sudden fame with bemusement, happy to be recognized but insistent that she had only been doing her job. Johnson and her colleagues struggled unceasingly against racism and sexism, being three women of color attempting to enter an industry which was, and even half a century later remains, dominated by white men. NASA has also collected numerous historical accounts and anecdotes at a special memorial page.
KATHERINE JOHNSON NASA KATHE MOVIE
Only recently famous after the film "Hidden Figures" was made about her and her colleagues, she maintained until the end that she was "only doing her job."įor those who don't know Johnson's story, it is probably best told by reading the book (by Margot Lee Shetterly) or watching the movie - which although it takes some license with the events and persons depicted, is a fascinating and revealing triple portrait of its three protagonists. Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who defied prejudice in the '50s and '60s to help NASA send the first men to the moon, has died at the age of 101.