Johnson was part of a group of African-American women who worked on critical math. ‘If she says they’re good,’ Katherine Johnson remembers the astronaut saying, ‘then I’m ready to go. Pioneering NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson has died at the age of 101. As a part of the preflight checklist, Glenn asked engineers to ‘get the girl’ - Johnson - to run the same numbers through the same equations that had been programmed into the computer, but by hand, on her desktop mechanical calculating machine. As NASA points out, “Astronauts were wary of putting their lives in the care of the electronic calculating machines, which were prone to hiccups and blackouts. She is best known, however, for her 1962 work on John Glenn’s orbital spaceflight.
She began working at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1953 and in 1961, she did trajectory analysis for Alan Shepard’s mission Freedom 7, which was America’s first human spaceflight.
Johnson was a trailblazer both as a woman and as a person of color. Her story and her grace continue to inspire the world.” Yet, for most of her career, these accomplishments went. Starting in the 1950s, her invaluable mathematical calculations had helped push NASA’s space exploration to untold heights.
“The NASA family will never forget Katherine Johnson’s courage and the milestones we could not have reached without her. When Katherine Johnson retired from NASA in 1986, she capped off an astonishing career as one of the most invaluable computers in the history of the agency. “She was an American hero and her pioneering legacy will never be forgotten,” Bridenstine wrote.
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Johnson’s story was depicted in the 2016 Oscar-nominated movie Hidden Figures, where she was portrayed by Taraji P. Pioneering NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson has passed away at the age of 101, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine announced Monday morning (Feb.
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