“Fifty years ago, the Apollo 11 astronauts were awarded with the medal, and we’re honored to recognize the mathematician whose precise calculations made those flights possible. "We are honored to present Katherine Johnson the Hubbard Medal, the National Geographic Society's highest recognition, for her extraordinary contributions in the fields of science and exploration,” National Geographic Society CEO Jill Tiefenthaler said this week. She is an awardee of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the 2020 recipient of the Hubbard Medal, National Geographic’s highest honor, recognizing a lifetime achievement in research, discovery, and exploration. It was 1986.Born in 1918, Katherine Johnson was one of the first Black students to integrate West Virginia’s graduate schools before becoming a NASA mathematician, where she helped send astronauts into orbit around Earth and to the moon and back. She retired in 1986, according to NASA, and in 2015, she was awarded the National Medal of Freedom.Ĭorrection: A previous version of this story misstated the year Katherine Johnson retired from NASA. Her work helped map the moon’s surface ahead of the 1969 landing and played a role in the safe return of the Apollo 13 astronauts. She worked on trajectories for Shepard’s Mercury flight, America’s first manned spaceflight, and earned a measure of fame as “the girl” – as female mathematicians were called – who double-checked the output for Glenn’s spaceflight. She pushed her way into briefings traditionally attended only by men and secured a place in the inner circle of the American Space Program. She worked there for years until the Soviet satellite Sputnik kicked off the space race between the US and the USSR, spurring the transformation of NACA into America’s space agency, NASA. It’s never just one person.”įor years, the women occupied a segregated wing, “West Area Computing,” and used separate facilities.Īfter just two weeks, she transferred to the facility’s Flight Research Division. As she said in a 2010 interview, “We always worked as a team. In interviews, Johnson has resisted taking full credit for the work. Computers were so new that even people at NASA were skeptical of them, and Glenn requested that Johnson personally confirm the computer calculations before his trip three times around Earth.Ī day and a half later, she proved the computer right. Johnson’s work was held in such high regard in its time that Glenn was aware of it. That changed, thanks to “Hidden Figures,” a best-selling novel later turned into an Oscar-nominated movie.Ī pivotal scene in the film features Glenn. But her work – and that of the “Computer Pool” – barely earned a mention in pop culture space tributes. Today, retired mathematician Katherine Johnson makes her 100th trip around the Sun as she celebrates her birthday! Send her birthday wishes using #Happy100Katherine & learn about her calculations that launched to space □: /DVvVYnrupe- NASA August 26, 2018 Katherine Johnson, the woman who hand-calculated the trajectory for America’s first trip to space, turns 100 today.īefore the arrival of electronic data processors, aka, computers in the 1960s, humans – mainly women – comprised the workforce at NASA known as the “ Computer Pool.”īlack women, especially, played a crucial role in the pool, providing mathematical data for NASA’s first successful space missions, including Alan Shepherd’s 1961 mission and John Glenn’s pioneering orbital spaceflight.
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