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  2. May 9, 2024 · Katherine Johnson, American mathematician who calculated and analyzed the flight paths of many spacecraft during her more than three decades with the U.S. space program. Her work helped send astronauts to the Moon. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015.

    • Katherine Johnson Graduated from College at Age 18.
    • Katherine Johnson Was Rejected by NASA The First Time She applied.
    • Katherine Johnson Helped Send John Glenn Into Orbit.
    • Katherine Johnson Helped Send The First Men to The Moon.
    • Katherine Johnson Wrote The Book on Space Travel (literally).
    • Katherine Johnson Contributed to Plans For A Mars Mission.
    • Katherine Johnson Was Given The Presidential Medal of Freedom.
    • Katherine Johnson Eventually Received Her Doctorate.
    • NASA Named A Spacecraft After Katherine Johnson.

    Johnson’s gift for numbers allowed her to accelerate through her education. Born Katherine Coleman in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, on August 26, 1918, she enrolled directly into the second grade when she reached school age, and by age 10 she was ready for high school. As an undergrad at West Virginia State College, she took every math clas...

    In the mid-1950s, NASA (then known as the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or NACA) was looking into sending people to space for the first time—a task that required crunching a lot of numbers. Without the high-powered computers we have at our disposal today, the agency hired a team of women “computers” to do the complex math for low wag...

    Astronaut John Glenn’s three orbits around Earth in 1962 marked a pivotal moment in the Space Race between the U.S. and Russia. His may be the face most people remember, but behind the scenes, Johnson played an important part in getting him off the ground. The orbital equations used to choreograph his mission had been uploaded to a computer, but th...

    The same year John Glenn made his historic journey, NASA received orders from President John F. Kennedy to get to work on a more ambitious mission: sending a crewed shuttle to the moon. This trip would require even more calculations, and Johnson once again played a significant role. She worked with NASA’s team of engineers to pinpoint the time and ...

    NASA deputy administrator Dava Newman wasn’t exaggerating when she said that Johnson “literally wrote the textbook on rocket science” in a statement from NASA. She co-authored one of the first textbookson space while while working in NASA’s Flight Dynamics Branch at the Langley Research Center.

    Later in her career at NASA, Johnson worked on some of the agency’s early plans for a mission to Mars. She retired in 1986, decades before NASA would release a detailed planfor reaching the Red Planet to the public.

    Few people knew her name when the first astronauts landed on the moon in 1969, but in 2015, Johnson received recognition on a national scale. President Barack Obamaawarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her pioneering work in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). The medal is the highest honor a civilian can re...

    More than 75 years after she dropped out of graduate school, Johnson received an honorary doctorate degree from West Virginia University. According to the institution, Johnson earned the honor by “attaining national and international preeminence in the field of astrophysics and providing distinguished leadership and service in her field.”

    Johnson’s legacy still lives at NASA and beyond. In 2021, NASA announced it had named an NG-15 Cygnus cargo craft the S.S. Katherine Johnson. The uncrewed craftdelivered supplies and equipment to the International Space Station. A version of this story originally ran in 2018; it has been updated for 2023.

    • Michele Debczak
  3. Oct 10, 2016 · Gender: Female. Best Known For: One of NASA's human 'computers,' Katherine Johnson performed the complex calculations that enabled humans to successfully achieve space flight. Her story is ...

  4. Nearly two decades before the Little Rock Nine, Katherine Johnson was chosen as one of three Black students, and the first Black woman, to integrate West Virginia University and pursue graduate studies. She studied math, but soon left to start a family.

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  5. Jul 30, 2023 · NASA mathematician, trailblazer in the quest for racial equality, contributor to our nation’s first triumphs in human spaceflight and champion of STEM education, Katherine G. Johnson stands among NASA’s most inspirational figures.

  6. Mar 26, 2024 · by history tools. March 26, 2024. Katherine Johnson: The Woman Whose Math Skills Launched Rockets. In 1953, before NASA even existed, a 35-year old African American mother of three landed a history-making role that would send shockwaves rippling across gender and racial divides.

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