October 6
On October 6, 1958, Katherine Johnson submitted the orbital mechanics calculations for the first American satellite trajectory proposals. She was forty years old and had been working at what would become NASA's Langley Research Center since 1953, hired as part of the "West Computing" unit — the pool of Black women mathematicians who performed calculations for the agency under segregated conditions that required them to use separate bathrooms, eat in a separate cafeteria, and work in a separate building.
Johnson was born in 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. She graduated summa cum laude from West Virginia State College at eighteen with degrees in mathematics and French. When West Virginia University integrated its graduate programs in 1939, she was one of three Black students and the only woman selected to enroll. She left to start a family and returned to Langley in 1953.
Her calculations were foundational to early American spaceflight. She calculated the trajectory for Alan Shepard's 1961 Freedom 7 flight — the first American in space. For John Glenn's 1962 orbital flight, NASA was transitioning from human computers to electronic computers; Glenn refused to fly until Johnson personally verified the computer's calculations by hand. She verified them.
She calculated the trajectory for the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. She worked on the Space Shuttle program and the Earth Resources Satellite.
She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 at ninety-seven. She died in 2020 at 101.
Johnson's calculation work was essential to the American space program at its most critical early phase. The segregated structure of the computing pool she worked in — separate facilities, no formal recognition, work attributed to the mission rather than to the individuals who did it — meant her contributions were invisible for decades. John Glenn's refusal to fly without her manual verification suggests the engineers knew whose work they trusted.
A new forgotten woman, every day. Direct to you.