Katherine Johnson was born as Creola Katherine Coleman on August 26, 1918, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, to Joylette Roberta (née Lowe) and Joshua McKinley Coleman. In 2021, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. In 2019, Johnson was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by the United States Congress. Henson as a lead character in the 2016 film Hidden Figures. Melvin and a NASA Group Achievement Award. In 2016, she was presented with the Silver Snoopy Award by NASA astronaut Leland D. In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was known as a "human computer" for her tremendous mathematical capability and ability to work with space trajectories with such little technology and recognition at the time. Her calculations were also essential to the beginning of the Space Shuttle program, and she worked on plans for a mission to Mars. Johnson's work included calculating trajectories, launch windows, and emergency return paths for Project Mercury spaceflights, including those for astronauts Alan Shepard, the first American in space, and John Glenn, the first American in orbit, and rendezvous paths for the Apollo Lunar Module and command module on flights to the Moon. The space agency noted her "historical role as one of the first African-American women to work as a NASA scientist".
Katherine johnson nasa book manual#
During her 33-year career at NASA and its predecessor, she earned a reputation for mastering complex manual calculations and helped pioneer the use of computers to perform the tasks. Now in Reaching for the Moon she tells her own story for the first time, in a lively autobiography that will inspire young readers everywhere.Katherine Johnson ( née Coleman Aug– February 24, 2020) was an American mathematician whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. Katherine Johnson’s story was made famous in the bestselling book and Oscar-nominated film Hidden Figures.
She worked on many of NASA’s biggest projects including the Apollo 11 mission that landed the first men on the moon. In the early 1950s, Katherine was thrilled to join the organization that would become NASA. Still, she lived her life with her father’s words in mind: “You are no better than anyone else, and nobody else is better than you.” As an African American and a girl growing up in an era of brutal racism and sexism, Katherine faced daily challenges. But ability and opportunity did not always go hand in hand. In school she quickly skipped ahead several grades and was soon studying complex equations with the support of a professor who saw great promise in her.
The inspiring autobiography of NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, who helped launch Apollo 11.Īs a young girl, Katherine Johnson showed an exceptional aptitude for math. On November 24, 2015, she received the nation's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, from President Barack H. Johnson, who co-authored twenty-six scientific papers, has been the recipient of NASA’s Lunar Spacecraft and Operation’s Group Achievement Award and NASA’s Apollo Group Achievement Award. Her calculations proved critical to the success of the Apollo Moon landing program and the start of the Space Shuttle program. She continued to work at NASA until 1986, combining her math talent with electronic computer skills. Even after NASA began using electronic computers, John Glenn requested that she personally recheck the calculations made by the new electronic computers before his flight aboard Friendship 7 – the mission on which he became the first American to orbit the Earth. She calculated the trajectory for Alan Shepard, the first American in space. In 1953, she joined Langley Research Center as a research mathematician for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), where she put her mathematics skills to work. Johnson was one of the first African Americans to enroll in the mathematics program at West Virginia University.Īfter college, Johnson began teaching in elementary and high schools in Virginia and West Virginia. degree in French and mathematics in 1937 from West Virginia State University (formerly West Virginia State College). She attended West Virginia State High School and graduated from high school at age fourteen. From a young age, Johnson counted everything and could easily solve mathematical equations. Her mother was a teacher and her father was a farmer and janitor. Mathematician and computer scientist Katherine Johnson was born in 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.
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