"We will continue building on her legacy." "At NASA, we will never forget her courage and leadership and the milestones we could not have reached without her," Bridenstine said. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced her death and promised that her legacy would be remembered. Related: Reaching for the Moon: Exclusive excerpt from Katherine Johnson Autobiography for kids … I just ignored the social customs that told me to stay in my place." If I encountered something I didn't understand, I'd just ask. I also would persist even if I thought I was being ignored. "I didn't allow their side-eyes and annoyed looks to intimidate or stop me. To ensure that I'd get the answer right, I needed to understand the thinking behind their choices and decisions," she wrote. "Every time engineers would hand me their equations to evaluate, I would do more than what they'd asked. In 2019, Johnson told her own story for young readers in a book called " Reaching for the Moon" (Atheneum Books for Young Readers). And in 2016, the NASA Langley facility at which Johnson worked renamed a building in her honor: the Katherine G. In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honor. The release of "Hidden Figures" made Johnson one of the most celebrated black women in space science and a hero for those calling for action against sexism and racism in science and engineering. Henson, Janelle Monáe and Octavia Spencer as Johnson and her colleagues Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughan.
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She and her colleagues became famous with the publication of " Hidden Figures" (William Morrow and Co., 2016) by Margot Lee Shetterly and the release of the blockbuster movie of the same name, which starred Taraji P.
And there will always, always be mathematics. "There will always be science, engineering and technology. "Some things will drop out of the public eye and will go away," she said. Johnson spent the following years speaking to students about her extraordinary career, encouraging them to pursue STEM education.
(Image credit: NASA) (opens in new tab) Johnson's legacy Katherine Johnson, pictured here at NASA's Langley Research Center, where she worked as a computer and mathematician from 1953 to 1986. She later helped to develop the space shuttle program and Earth resources satellite, and she co-authored 26 research reports before retiring in 1986. She also proved invaluable on the Apollo 13 mission, providing backup procedures that helped ensure the crew's safe return after their craft malfunctioned. The next challenge was to send humans to the moon, and Johnson's calculations helped sync the Apollo 11 lunar lander with the moon-orbiting command and service module to get the astronauts back to Earth. "If she says they're good, then I'm ready to go," Glenn said. Before his Friendship 7 mission, astronaut John Glenn requested that Johnson personally recheck the calculations by hand. By this time, NASA had begun using electronic computers to perform these tasks, but the machines could be a little temperamental. She also confirmed the trajectory to send the first American into orbit around the Earth. Johnson was tasked with calculating the trajectory for Alan Shepard's historic flight, during which he became the first American to reach space. Subsequent orbital missions were more complicated, with more variables involving the position and rotation of the Earth, so Johnson used a celestial training device to perform her calculations. "You tell me when you want it and where you want it to land, and I'll do it backwards and tell you when to take off," Johnson said. So when NASA wanted the capsule to come down at a certain place, she was not deterred.
For NASA's 1961 Mercury mission, she knew that the trajectory would be a parabola, a type of symmetrical curve. Johnson's passion was geometry, which was useful for calculating the trajectories of spacecraft. In 1958, NACA became NASA, and the Space Race began. Sending astronauts into space and to the moon
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