Melvin, and a NASA Group Achievement Award. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Silver Snoopy Award from NASA astronaut Leland D. Towards the end of her life, these contributions began to receive the recognition they deserve. She also contributed to the beginning of the Space Shuttle program and worked on plans for a mission to Mars. The highlights? Calculations for astronauts Alan Shepard, the first American in space, and John Glenn, the first American in orbit - not to mention rendezvous paths for the Apollo Lunar Module and command module on flights to the moon. There, she calculated trajectories, launch windows, and emergency return paths for Project Mercury spaceflights. “You lose your curiosity when you stop learning.”īy 1958, she had moved into the Spacecraft Controls Branch. Group Achievement Award and NASAs Apollo Group Achievement Award. She received the NASA Langely Research Center Special Achievement Award in 1971, 1980, 1984, 19. The space agency refers to her historical role as “one of the first African American women to work as a NASA scientist.” Mathematician and computer scientist Katherine Johnson was born in 1918 in White. Johnson has been the recipient of NASA’s Lunar Spacecraft and Operation’s Group Achievement Award and NASA’s Apollo Group Achievement Award. A Rocketing Careerĭuring her 33-year career at NASA (and its predecessor NACA), she earned herself a reputation for acing complex manual calculations and pioneering the use of computers. She is famous for being awarded the Presidential Medal of Honor. Johnson accepted a job offer from the agency in June 1953 and was initially assigned to Dorothy Vaughan’s group. Katherine Johnson (maiden name Coleman) was best known for her work at NASA to support America in the space race in the 1950s. At a family gathering in 1952, a relative mentioned that the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was hiring mathematicians - including African Americans. She began working as a teacher, but her life would soon change dramatically. By 1937, she graduated from West Virginia State with degrees in mathematics and French at the age of just 18. Although Greenbrier County did not offer public schooling for African American students past the eighth grade, her parents were determined to support her talent and enrolled her at a high school in Institute, West Virginia when she was 10 - splitting their time between there and their home in White Sulphur Springs. Johnson received the Group Achievement Award presented to NASAs Lunar. spaceflights into orbit.įrom an early age, Johnson revealed amazing mathematical abilities. Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson is a pioneer of the American space movement. Her achievement with numbers continued, and she became one of the first African American graduate students at the University of West Virginia. Katherine Johnson, NASA Mathematician, recipient of the 2015 National Medal of Freedom, our nation’s highest civilian honor In 1953, after years as a teacher and later as a stay-at-home mom, Katherine, an extraordinary mathematician, began working for NASA’s predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or NACA. Creola Katherine Johnson (1918–2020) was a talented African American mathematician and NASA employee whose calculations helped set the first crewed U.S.
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