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How Did Katherine Johnson Impact The Space Race

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Amelia Martinez Mrs. Aderholdt 8th Grade Language Arts 18 April 2023 Powerful Women in Science How did Katherine Johnson and the other women who worked with her at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) impact the Space Race? During the time of the Space Race, women were hired within the scientific field as computers. The “computers” were hired to calculate the complex equations that space travel and research entailed. Katherine Johnson and her female coworkers were especially impactful in the race to space and the important representation of females in the scientific field. These intelligent women were a leading cause for our success in space exploration. Katherine Johnson was an impressive black female mathematician. …show more content…

In 1942, Mary W. Jackson graduated from the Hampton Institute with a dual-degree in Math and Physical Sciences. Similar to Johnson, Jackson taught in an all-black school before her time working for NACA/NASA. She would change occupations three more times before finally working in the computing section of NASA’s Langley Laboratory. After working two years in the computing department, she was offered a position working with engineers in the “Supersonic Pressure Tunnel, a 60,000 horsepower wind tunnel capable of blasting models with winds approaching twice the speed of sound” (Shetterly, Mary W. Jackson Biography). Here, she was given hands-on experience with conducting experiments and her mentor Kazimierz Czarnecki suggested that she “enter a training program that would allow her to earn a promotion from mathematician to engineer” (Shetterly, Mary W. Jackson Biography). She took this advice and was required to take graduate-level math and physics courses after work. Jackson needed to get special permission to be in the classroom with her white peers because Hampton High School was still very segregated. Jackson was said to be “Never one to flinch in the face of a challenge” (Shetterly, Mary W. Jackson Biography). She powered through her courses and gained her promotion to an engineer. In 1958, she became NASA’s very first black female engineer. Female engineers from any background were …show more content…

As head of National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics’ (NACA’s) segregated West Area Computing Unit, she gained the title of NASA’s first African-American manager. Vaughan came to the Langley Laboratory in 1943. She was assigned to the West Area Computing unit. This unit was an all-black computing unit filled with colored female mathematicians. These women were “originally required to use separate dining and bathroom facilities” (Dorothy Vaughan Biography) due to the Jim Crow laws which required “work separately from their white female counterparts” (Dorothy Vaughan Biography). Originally, the unit’s first leaders were white. Later, Dorothea was promoted to “NACA's first black supervisor” (Dorothy Vaughan Biography). She stayed at the head of the West Area Computing unit for 10 years until it was abolished along with segregation within the departments when NACA became NASA. Her work as a trailblazer in the fight against black stereotypes within the workplace at the time were truly the first step in letting her legacy live on within the careers of people such as Mary Jackson and Katherine

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Katherine Johnson was a strong African-American woman who isn’t often talked about. Only within the last two years at the age of 98, does she start getting recognition. A movie was released about her and the women working in the NACA´s branch in 2016. She is the woman who discovered the math that hadn’t yet been created, for launch and landing in the space race. Katherine made these amazing discoveries whilst dealing with constant segregation and oppression for being an African-American Woman.

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They wanted everyone to be able to work together, for it wasn’t about them, it was about the astronauts who were being launched into space. After the complete transition from NACA to NASA, Vaughan worked in the Analysis and Computation Division department where she became an expert FORTRAN programmer. It was here where she worked on massive projects, one of the main known as SCOUT or Solid Controlled Orbital Utility Test. This launch vehicle program became one of the most successful as well as reliable launch

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Everyone knows about the Apollo 11 flight and John Glenn, but no one knows about who was behind the calculations of it all. Without her and the work of many other mathematicians the mission would have never happened. John Glenn trusted Katherine with his life, as her calculations had to perfect for him to come back alive and the mission to be successful. I also thought about what would have happened if Katherine never went to work at NASA. She was the only one out of all of the people working there that knew how to do the complex equations that were needed.

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