Most people know about Neil Armstrong and his expedition to Mars, yet they aren’t aware about the woman that was behind it all. Katherine Johnson was referred to as a computer because of her ability to compute difficult math problems by hand. At the age of 15, Johnson started college and took classes to become a mathematician. She had a job as a teacher when she learned that NACA (now known as NASA) was hiring women to solve math problems. She applied for a job position, but they were already taken. However, she was not going to give up. Johnson reapplied for the position the next year, and this time she was hired.
Katherine was different from the other human computers. She was determined to learn more about her work and NASA. In order to do this, she started attending meetings. Before Katherine, only men had attended these meetings, but she proved that women were capable of doing more. Shortly after, Johnson left her position as a computer and became a permanent team member that helped work on projects for NASA.
In 1968, the United States decided to send people to the moon. This was a very big deal because back then, nobody had successfully landed on the moon yet. One of the biggest problems to think about was how to get the astronauts on the moon. Since rockets and spacecrafts cannot fly in a straight line, Katherine used geometry to find the answer. She used math to figure out the paths for the spacecraft to orbit Earth and land on the moon. NASA used her math, and it worked! Katherine’s math allowed for Apollo 11 to transport the first humans to and from Mars.
Katherine worked with NASA for over 30 years. During retirement, she spent much of her time encouraging students to work and study hard and motivated them to learn more about math and science. She died on February 24, 2020 at the age of 101.
-- Meghna Reddy
