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How Did Katherine Johnson Contribute To Space Exploration

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Katherine Johnson

Katherine Johnson majorly contributed to space exploration over the years and made a huge impact in astronomy by calculating and researching several space missions. Katherine has always been a genius. She was born in West Virginia in 1918. She graduated West Virginia State College with highest honors. She was selected as one of the first three African American students to enroll in a graduate program at West Virginia University. Katherine Johnson changed and bettered space exploration by checking calculations and connecting tracking stations to computers for John Glenn, making and checking calculations to Synch project Apollo 11 with the moon orbiting module as well as contributing to bringing Apollo 13 back to Earth after …show more content…

Glenn was counting on Katherine to make sure his trip to space was safe "Glenn asked engineers to get Katherine Johnson to run the same numbers through the same equations programmed into the computer..."(NASA, 2018) Katherine was a human calculator. She majorly contributed to Glenn's successful orbit. She was accurate with her calculations and recognized throughout NASA for her work. John Glenn would not go into space without the "okay" from Katherine, he even stated, "if she says they're good (calculations), I'm ready to go."(NASA, 2018) Katherine was the only African American woman in the research group, and she proved as a woman she could stand her ground and was working tirelessly to prove she more than deserved her position. Without Katherine, calculations could have easily …show more content…

Katherine used her brain to bring the first men to the moon, "She performed calculations for the historic 1969 Appollo 11 trip to the moon..."(Johnson, 2018) Katherine continued to prove she was an accurate human calculator with this project. The Appollo 11 had multiple vulnerabilities that could have easily malfunctioned, but Johnson worked herself to her limits to confirm all the calculations for the project. Speaking of malfunctions, Katherine helped bring another spacecraft back to the ground after a malfunction shortly after, "and the following year when Appollo 13 experienced a malfunction in space, her contributions to contingency procedures and calculations helped ensure its safe return."(Johnson, 2018) Katherine had such a huge presence in space exploration for being a woman. She never stopped proving others wrong about her skills, consistency, and accuracy. With this project she not only proved she could successfully send astronauts into space, she now proved she could successfully get people out of space in emergency situations, too. Johnson's quick thinking, and bright mind helped fix a malfunction that could have costed

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