1/8/2024 0 Comments Katherine johnson nasa 2017She zipped through the school’s math program, earning degrees in math and French before becoming one of the first African- American students to integrate the graduate school at West Virginia University in 1938. Johnson’s math skills got her into West Virginia State College at age 15. But her mother, a former teacher, and her father, a farmer and handyman, stressed education and moved the family 120 miles to Institute, W.Va., that had a high school for black children. She grew up in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., at a time when educational opportunities for African-Americans were limited because of segregation. Johnson was fascinated by numbers and counted everything, even the steps she took while walking and the dishes she washed after dinner. She wished it away, willed it out of existence in as much as her daily life was concerned.”Īs a youngster, Mrs. “She didn’t close her eyes to the racism that existed,” Margot Lee Shetterly wrote in “Hidden Figures.” “She knew just as well as any other black person the tax levied upon them because of their color. Johnson always said she was too busy with her work to be concerned with racism. But they did their work in facilities separate from white female workers and were required to use separate restrooms and dining facilities. Johnson and her African-American co-workers ran the numbers for unmanned rocket launches, test flights and airplane safety studies using pencils, slide rules and mechanical calculating machines. During the space race between the United States and the former Soviet Union that began in the late 1950s, Mrs. Johnson told the Washington Post in 2017. “He knew I had done (the calculations) before for him and they trusted my work,” Mrs. “Get (her) to check the numbers,” he said. Johnson and her work that he insisted she be consulted before his historic Earth-orbiting flight in 1962. in 1961 to the first moon landing in 1969 by Apollo 11 astronauts and the early years of the Space Shuttle program.Īstronaut John Glenn thought so much of Mrs. Her work influenced every major space program - from American’s first manned space flight by Mercury astronaut Alan B. She had a groundbreaking career of 33 years with the space agency, from 1953 until her retirement in 1986. Johnson attended the 2017 Academy Awards ceremony in Hollywood, joining the film’s cast in presenting an award for documentaries. When the book “Hidden Figures” was published and the 2016 Oscar-nominated movie starring Taraji P. They were little known to the public for decades, but gained overdue recognition Johnson and her female African-American colleagues at the fledgling NASA were known as “computers” when that term was used not for a programmed electronic device but for a woman who did computations. “Across our Commonwealth and around the world, we mourn her loss and honor her remarkable life.” “Katherine Johnson was a pioneer for her work that broke barriers of race and gender and helped take us to the moon,” Gov. Johnson at the NASA Langley Research Facility in Hampton, and a year later, her alma mater, West Virginia State University, marked her 100th birthday in August 2018 by establishing a scholarship in her name and erecting a statue. In 2017, NASA named a research facility for Mrs. Johnson was presented with the medal by President Obama. “She’s one of the greatest minds ever to grace our agency or our country,” then NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said when Mrs. Her story and her grace continue to inspire the world.” He wrote the NASA family will never forget her “courage and the milestones we could not have reached without her. “Her pioneering legacy will never be forgotten,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine posted to Twitter in announcing her death on Monday. Johnson was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom by the former president in November 2015, and in 2016 he cited her in his State of the Union address as an example of America’s spirit of discovery. But by the end of her life, she had become a hero to millions - including Michelle and me.” “She spent decades as a hidden figure, breaking barriers behind the scenes. “After a lifetime of reaching for the stars, today, Katherine Johnson landed among them,” former President Obama posted on Twitter. 24, 2015, in the East Room of the White House. Johnson, then 97, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, during a ceremony Nov.
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