Katherine Johnson: Calculations Sent Crews into Space
Katherine Johnson was one of a handful of African American women hired to do computing in the guidance and navigation department at Langley’s Research Center in Virginia. The women battled both racism and sexism. As Johnson told public television station WHRO in 2011, none of it held her back. Her work spoke for itself, and she rose in ranks at NASA. She became a well-respected figure and many of the astronauts made sure that Johnson verified all of the numbers for their expeditions before taking off. But that doesn’t mean she got the appropriate amount of credit for her work.
In 1962, Johnson and engineer Ted Skopinski were working on equations to launch, track, and maneuver a spacecraft on an orbital flight that would end with the spacecraft landing at a specific position. The equations in that report — which were mostly Johnson’s equations — provided the mathematical backbone for America’s first spaceflight in May 1961 and America’s first orbital mission in February 1962. It was a significant piece of work. And it was a significant thing to claim credit for, especially for a woman of color in 1960 whose employer had nominally desegregated its workforce in 1958 but whose supervisor, Henry Pearson, was “no fan of women,” as Johnson put it. In September 1960, Pearson was pushing Johnson’s coauthor, Skopinski, to finish the report and put his name on it. But Skopinski insisted Johnson finish the work because “she had done most of the work.”