She worked with white computers on projects like writing a handbook about calculating machines. She was given access to the whole laboratory, not just the segregated wing, and her intelligence and creativity were finally allowed to flourish. She was eventually promoted to lead the black female computers, making her NASA’s first black supervisor. However, black computers were still segregated in a separate wing of NASA’s Langley Laboratory. She was hired as a computer after Roosevelt signed a law banning racial discrimination in public defense. Working beside Johnson throughout this journey was Dorothy Vaughn. In a time where the world of physics and spaceflight was run by white men, Katherine Johnson let nothing stop her. She worked tirelessly, and eventually what started as a job running numbers through a calculator became the pathway to becoming one of the first women at NASA to co-author a research paper. John Glenn himself said that if she reviewed the equations and numbers for his flight, then he felt safe and was ready to take off. When these engineers were reassigned to the John Glenn mission, she went with them, launching her career in unimaginable ways.ĭespite the odds, Katherine Johnson soon became the one writing her own equations. She began her journey as a computer in an all-black computing section of a NASA lab, analyzing flight test data for a group of engineers. Her most memorable accomplishment, however, is beyond even these: she got mankind into orbit.
#KATHERINE JOHNSON NASA PAPER MOVIE#
Katherine Johnson is the focus of the movie and book and holds many titles, such as one of the first three people to integrate West Virginia’s graduate school, and a summa cum laude college graduate at age 18. The women of Hidden Figures each have unique stories and achievements.
As the movie review from The New Yorker states: “The basic virtue of “Hidden Figures and it’s a formidable one, is to proclaim with a clarion vibrancy that, were it not for the devoted, unique, and indispensable efforts of three black women scientists, the United States might not have successfully sent people into space or to the moon and back.” This representation of black women in astrophysics has been immeasurably important in showing young women and people of color that they can overcome obstacles and succeed in astrophysics. These women led extraordinary lives that were often overshadowed by the accomplishments of their white male colleagues. The book Hidden Figures highlights the experiences of three specific black women: Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, and the movie brought their stories to an even larger audience. The 2016 movie and book Hidden Figures, brought to light the many contributions of black women to astrophysics. The women of Hidden Figures and their movie counterparts.
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