Katherine Johnson- from a little girl who loved numbers to a woman who counted the way to the stars. Katherine was a research mathematician at NASA. She is known as a human “computer” who performed meticulous mathematical calculations concerning spacecraft, by hand. She calculated rocket trajectories and Earth orbits for Nasa’s early space missions. Her work eventually helped humans land on the moon.
An inspiring mathematician and a trailblazer for women in STEM who coincidentally (or maybe not) was born on August 26: Women’s Equality Day, this is the story of Katherine Johnson.
LIFE
Born in the little town of White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, Johnson showed signs of mathematical brilliance as a child and grew up with a love for numbers.
At 10 years old, she was already a high school freshman. Her dad Joshua, who was determined to provide his daughter the education she deserved, drove his family 120 miles to Institute, West Virginia, where she could continue her education through high school.
“I counted everything. I counted the steps to the road, the steps up to church, the number of dishes and silverware I washed … anything that could be counted, I did.”
Katherine Johnson
His decision proved right as Katherine performed remarkably well and skipped grades to graduate high school at age 14. She graduated college with the highest honours from West Virginia State College (now West Virginia State University), earning bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and French, at age 18. At college, she loved being surrounded by smart people and knew all the professors and students on campus.
CAREER
In 1935, NASA’s predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or NACA took the unusual decision to hire women for the tedious and precise work of measuring and calculating the results of wind tunnel tests, earning them the name “computer”. This was way before the invention of the electronic computer we know today.
During World War II, the NACA expanded this effort to include African-American women. The NACA was so pleased with the results that, unlike many organizations, they kept the women computers at work after the war. Growing demands for space research and new openings for African-American women at Langley Research Center’s Guidance and Navigation Department in 1953 provided the perfect environment for Johnson’s extraordinary mathematical skills to flourish.
This is how she came to be a “computer” at Langley Research Center. (“When the computer wore a skirt,” said Johnson.)
She joined a group of African-American women who manually performed complex mathematical calculations for the program’s engineers. The women, known as the West Computers, analyzed test data and provided mathematical computations essential to the success of the early U.S. space program.
“The women did what they were told to do,” she explained.” They didn’t ask questions or take the task any further. I asked questions; I wanted to know why. They got used to me asking questions and being the only woman there.”
Katherine Johnson
Johnson was a steadfast and resolute woman with an inquisitive nature, she sought to question the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ and then the ‘why nots’ of her work at a time when women like her were expected to quietly do as they were told. When told that women weren’t allowed to participate in meetings and briefings, she asked if there was a law against it- and eventually began to attend meetings.
As Johnson became known for her training in geometry, she began to work with the team more and more. Eventually, she became known as a leader, and the men increasingly relied on her. She remembered quite clearly her experience at the time. “The women did what they were told to do,” she explained. “They didn’t ask questions or take the task any further. I asked questions; I wanted to know why. They got used to me asking questions and being the only woman there.” It was this curious nature and unrelenting spirit that made her a valuable resource to the team and the only woman at the time to ever be pulled from the computing pool to work on other programs.
She did trajectory analysis for Alan Shepard’s May 1961 mission Freedom 7, America’s first human spaceflight. In 1960, she and engineer Ted Skopinski coauthored Determination of Azimuth Angle at Burnout for Placing a Satellite Over a Selected Earth Position, a report explaining the equations describing an orbital spaceflight in which the landing position of the spacecraft is specified. It was the first time a woman in the Flight Research Division had received credit as an author of a research report.
She went on to do the calculations for the first actual Moon landing in 1969.
Johnson worked at the agency until 1986 when she retired after 33 years of service. During her tenure at NASA, Johnson received many prestigious awards. Among them were the NASA Lunar Orbiter Award and three NASA Special Achievement Awards. She was named Mathematician of the Year in 1997 by the National Technical Association. In 2015, at age 97, Johnson added another extraordinary achievement to her long list: President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honour.
She died on the morning of Feb. 24, 2020, at 101 years old. One can even go so far as to say that she lived a five-star life (5 in binary is 101 ;)), spending her life doing what she loved and paving the way for women in STEM all over the world.
“We will always have STEM with us. Some things will drop out of the public eye and will go away, but there will always be science, engineering, and technology. And there will always, always be mathematics.”
Katherine Johnson
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