Remembering Katherine Johnson, NASA Mathematician And Trailblazer

Katherine Johnson, one of the trailblazing NASA mathematicians depicted in “Hidden Figures” movie, died Monday, a representative of NASA said.

She was 101.

Statement on Katherine Johnson’s death

“Johnson helped our nation enlarge the frontiers of space even as she made huge strides that also opened doors for women and people of color in the universal human quest to explore space,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement.

Trailblazer in S.T.E.M.

Johnson was portrayed by Taraji P. Henson in the 2016 Oscar-nominated film about trailblazing black women whose work at NASA was intrinsic during the space era.

The film also stars Octavia Spencer as the mathematician Dorothy Vaughan and Janelle Monáe as the engineer Mary Jackson.

A graduate of West Virginia State College, Johnson began working at NASA’s predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) in 1953 at the Langley Laboratory in Virginia.

Katherine Johnson at NASA

Johnson said her greatest contribution to space exploration was making “the calculations that helped sync Project Apollo’s Lunar Lander with the moon-orbiting Command and Service Module.” In other words, helping to put men on the moon in 1969.

She was also the first woman in the Flight Research Division to receive credit as an author of a research report for her work with Ted Skopinski on detailing the equations describing an orbital spaceflight.

Read More