She would be part of the effort to put human beings into outer space. This represented Katherine’s wildest dreams come true-an opportunity to leap into the intellectual (and literal) unknown, to be involved with something completely untried and untested in the course of human history. With the new emphasis on space, PARD’s and Flight Research’s engineers came to the fore. Her Flight Research Division worked closely with an engineering group called the Pilotless Aircraft Research Division (PARD), which specialized in rocketry. History began playing out right in front of NASA’s Katherine Johnson. The Space Task Force and Manned Space Travel Katherine’s work had made a powerful and direct impact on the real world. This discovery led to changes in air traffic regulations, mandating minimum times and distances between flight paths. Through her data analysis, the engineers determined that the propeller plane had crossed the flight path of a jet and had gotten caught in its wake vortex (similar to how, on water, the wake created by a large ship can overwhelm and capsize a small boat). She pored over the numbers, calculating the airspeed, acceleration, altitude, and other data points from the flight in an attempt to unlock the mystery of this crash. On one of her first assignments, Hidden Figures‘ Katherine had to conduct research into why a propeller plane had fallen out of the sky for seemingly no reason. They stopped seeing her as the “black computer” and saw her simply as “Katherine.” What she relished most of all was the intelligence of her colleagues-she respected their intellectual capacity, and they respected hers right back. But Katherine held her own and impressed the engineers with her insatiable intellectual curiosity and her obvious passion for the work. It was a very masculine, testosterone-fueled workplace, one which didn’t seem outwardly hospitable to a female computer. This group was working on the aerodynamics of airplanes as they moved in and out of steady, stable flight-a key subject area of research in the Cold War 1950s. The division chief, the formidable and intimidating Henry Pearson, acceded to Dorothy’s pressure: Katherine was given a salary increase and a permanent job in his Maneuver Loads Branch in 1953. After hearing how well Katherine was performing in the Flight Research Division, she presented the head of the division with an ultimatum: either give Katherine the raise and permanent position in the division she deserved, or return her to West Computing. Permanent Role in The Flight Research Divisionĭorothy Vaughan was a tireless advocate for the computers who worked under her. There were still separate bathrooms, but African-Americans also had an opportunity to demonstrate their value as professionals. At Langley, the racial barrier was a bit murkier, the walls of separation more scalable. The laboratory was always a curious outpost in the heartland of Jim Crow. This was a major step forward in her career and a major move toward integration. Charm OffensiveĪlthough Hidden Figures‘ Katherine Johnson had real credentials with her honors degree in mathematics and her teaching experience, she started at Langley with the rank of SP-3: a level 3 sub-professional, the low rank to which nearly all women at Langley were assigned during this era.Īfter just two weeks on the job, Katherine was moved to the Flight Research Division, one of the most important and powerful groups at Langley. As an added bonus, Katherine would be reporting to her old neighbor from West Sulphur Springs-Dorothy Vaughan. Like those who had come to Hampton Roads during World War Two, Katherine found a ready-made community waiting to accept her and her family, helping her fill the void of the world she’d left behind in her native and beloved West Virginia. Well-paid federal jobs like the ones awaiting Katherine and Jimmy helped build the emerging black middle class. Pioneering black female engineers and mathematicians like Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, and Katherine Johnson left an indelible mark on NASA, the struggle for African-American civil rights, and the United States itself. Katherine’s contributions helped make space travel possible, but she also contributed to her field and made lasting discoveries, cementing her legacy at NASA. Hidden Figures‘ Katherine Johnson was a mathematician who worked at NASA during the height of space travel. Who is Hidden Figures‘ Katherine Johnson? What was her career like, and what did she do at NASA? Like this article? Sign up for a free trial here. Shortform has the world's best summaries of books you should be reading. This article is an excerpt from the Shortform summary of "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly.
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