Johnsons knowledge of mathematics was instrumental in the return of the Apollo astronauts from the Moon to Earth. Speaking of her mother's love for education, Hylick said "She's most happy when children are encouraged and inspired.if all kids had teachers like my mother, it'd be a better world. Johnson was academically precocious, beginning high school at the age of 10. Joylette Goble Hylick, accepting the award for her mother Katherine Johnson Johnson Computational Research Facility on the occasion of the 55th anniversary of astronaut Alan Shepard’s historic rocket launch and splashdown, which Johnson helped achieve.Īt LSC’s Genius Gala in 2017, friends of the Science Center David Blaine and John Urschel presented Johnson's award to her daughter, Joylette Goble Hylick.Īccepting the award, Hylick said: “I just wish my mother were 40 years younger, because you wouldn’t have been able to get her out of here.” Katherine Johnson was a NASA mathematician who played a key role in several NASA missions during the Space Race, including calculating the trajectory needed to get the Apollo 11 mission to. In 2016, the NASA Langley Research Center named a new 40,000-square-foot wing the Katherine G. Johnson is the recipient of the 2015 Presidential Medal of Freedom. The story of Johnson and other female African-American mathematicians at NASA is memorialized in the film Hidden Figures, which received a 2017 Oscar nomination for Best Picture. Later in her NASA career, she worked on the Space Shuttle and a planned mission to Mars. Her calculations and strategic thinking helped get the Apollo 13 astronauts safely back to Earth. Her father, Joshua Coleman, was determined that. I counted the steps to the road, the steps up to church, the number of dishes and silverware I washedanything that could be counted, I did. Her mother was an educator, and her father was a farmer and a. Katherine Johnson was born on August 26, 1918, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. Even after NASA started relying on the IBM 7090 electronic computer, John Glenn and other astronauts refused to board the rockets until Johnson hand-checked the flight calculations. Katherine Johnson was born on August 26, 1918, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. In the pre-computer days at NASA, Johnson calculated the trajectories, launch windows, and emergency back-up return paths of the first manned space missions. Women & the American Story (WAMS), Episode 33At a time when American space exploration was dominated by men, mathematician Katherine Johnson. In 1939 she became the first African-American woman to attend graduate school at West Virginia University in Morgantown. Johnson was one of our honorees at LSC’s Genius Gala 6.0 in 2017, where she was celebrated as a “techno-optimist” – a brilliant technologist inventing a better future for all of us.Ī mathematical and language whiz, Johnson graduated from high school at 14 and college at 18. Katherine Johnson, the NASA mathematician who inspired the 2016 film Hidden Figures, died today at 101.
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