Katherine Johnson, a NASA mathematician who was depicted in the film "Hidden Figures," dies at the age of 101.The film features how it was for Black women working as mathematicians in NASA in 1953.
According to NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine Johnson "was an American hero and her pioneering legacy will never be forgotten." Her contributions to the NASA space program was an important part of the space program.
The film was about black women who were a big part of the American space race, as Johnson was one of the pioneering black women who has figured prominently in the 2016 film. Taraji P. Henson portrayed Johnson in that role and the film got an Oscar nomination in 2016 that same year.
In the film's cast, Octavia Spencer played Dorothy Vaughan and Janelle Monae as Mary Jackson in the movie. The women scientists play a large role in the space program despite prevailing social conditions during the 50s.
Johnson was employed at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics during 1953, in the Langley laboratory in Virginia. One of her duties in that time was analyzing the trajectory of the 1961 mission Freedom 7. It was the first-ever, spaceflight for humans, not a space chimp, related by NASA.
This led to Johnson, as the first woman working in the Flight Research Division to get credit for her contribution in the research done for it. Her report with Ted Skopinsky covered all the relevant equations to what is orbital spaceflight.
Without her contribution and dedication to calculations on achieving the first orbital spaceflight. This mission was piloted by none other than the legendary John Glenn who ushered the start of manned space travel.
The flight needed a worldwide communication network that linked and tracked the spacecraft to computers in Washington DC, Cape Canaveral and Bermuda. She helped create that network to track the Gemini spacecraft.
In that era, astronauts are not into using an electronic calculating machine, because they were unreliable with hiccups and blackouts, according to NASA. At one point, John Glenn asked if she can check the calculations by hand. Glen said if Johnson says, it is ready to go, he won't hesitate.
John Glenn's manned spaceflight became history, a success that gives the US an advantage over Russia in outer space, as narrated by NASA. When asked about her contribution to the exploration of space, Johnson considers the calculations which synchronized the Apollo Lunar Lander to the orbiting command and service module in space. NASA added that Johnson worked for 30 years while getting retired in 1986.
"Born in Sulphur Springs, West Virginia and she was good with numbers and later got her PhD in Mathematics. In 1939, she and two men (all black) were admitted to the West Virginia University, when it integrated. She went to West Virginia State College and was mentored by math professor W. W. Schieffelin Claytor. He was a well-respected academician, and the third African American to have a PhD in Mathematics," reports ABC News.
The rest is history as Katherine Johnson died on Monday, with achievements at NASA that gave America a major lead in the space race.
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