This is the story of a Space Scientist. A
Mathematician. A Physicist. A PIONEER.
In May of 2015, graduating students at West
Virginia State University reflected on a trail
that had been blazed for them by one of the
University’s most accomplished alumni.
NASA and West Virginia State have something
very important in common. Our legacies are
woven together by a remarkable, pioneering
American by the name of Katherine Johnson.
On November 16, 2015, the White House announced
that President Obama will be awarding Katherine
Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom,
our nation’s highest civilian honor. In
their official announcement, the White House
cited Katherine’s influence on every major
space program from Mercury through the Shuttle
Program.
During her remarkable three decades at NASA,
Katherine calculated the launch window for
America’s first human space flight. She
verified the calculations for John Glenn’s
historical orbit. She calculated the trajectory
of Apollo 11’s flight to the moon, and worked
on the plan that saved the Apollo 13 crew
and returned them safely to Earth.
A native of White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia,
Katherine’s intelligence always outpaced
her age.
As a young child she used to follow her older
brother to the two-room building where he
went to school. Her brother’s teacher was
amazed at her ability to read at such a young
age and invited her to attend summer school.
Thus began a remarkable path of learning and
discovery.
I was always around people who were learning something I liked to learn.
You learn if you want to, so you’ve got to want to learn.
Katherine enrolled in high school at only
10 years old. She would often walk home with
her principal after school and he’d point
to the constellations of the stars in the
sky. Katherine never stopped looking upward
or reaching for new heights.
Even in the face of personal adversity, Katherine
was determined to follow her dreams. In 1953,
these dreams brought her to NASA’s Langley
Research Center.
Originally, Katherine was hired to join a
team that was nicknamed “computers who wear
skirts.” But when the opportunity came to
help out the all-male flight research team
on what was supposed to be a temporary basis
she seized it – and so impressed her male
colleagues they chose not to send her back.
She would stay at Langley and with NASA until
her retirement in 1986.
I didn’t feel the segregation at NASA because everybody there was doing research and you had a mission and you worked on it and it was important to you to do your job
Katherine Johnson helped write the first textbook
on space, and today she continues to rewrite
history through an enduring impact she has
on space science, civil rights, and gender
equality.
When Katherine Johnson’s mother warned her
that she was moving to Virginia during a tough
time in American history for black women and
men, she responded “Well, tell them I’m
coming.” She helped lay the groundwork for
our Journey to Mars, so future generations
of explorers will also be able to say “tell
them I’m coming.”
