![]() In addition to calculating trajectories, launch windows, and emergency return paths for Project Mercury flights, she also calculated rendezvous paths for the Apollo lunar module and command module on flights to the moon. Johnson and her calculations were key in not only John Glenn’s orbit of the earth but also in every major space mission until her retirement from NASA in 1986. Katherine was taken on immediately and went on to play a vital role in the space program. America was embarked on the space race, and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia was hiring black mathematicians. Then in 1953 Johnson got an amazing break based on her talent and her mentors’ recommendations. Mentors encouraged her to pursue research, but she left the graduate program after her first child was born. After marrying, she left her teaching job and enrolled in a graduate program at West Virginia University, the first black woman in its history to be accepted. She graduated summa cum laude at age 18 with degrees in mathematics and French and took a job as a math teacher at a black public school in Virginia. To make this work, they had to move between homes in two separate towns, according to the school year.Īfter graduating from the campus high school at age 14, Johnson enrolled in the college and took every math course that was offered. During her childhood years in West Virginia, black children were not offered an education beyond the eighth grade, but her parents got around this by enrolling her at a high school on the campus of the predominately black West Virginia State College. As a black female, however, it took some special people to stand up for her and make this happen. Johnson had an early gift for numbers, and she always longed for a career in mathematics. As an adult, she was so well respected as a NASA mathematician that John Glenn refused to launch his earth-orbit mission until Johnson had personally double-checked the math of the computer-generated flight pattern. As a child, Katherine Johnson was so bright that she skipped seven grades and graduated ahead of her older siblings. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |