Katherine continued to work at NASA until 1986. But when they went to computers, they called over and said, "Tell her to check and see if the computer trajectory they had calculated was correct." So I checked it, and it was correct. You could do much more, much faster on the computer. You tell me when you want it and where you want it to land, and I'll do it backward and tell you when to take off." That was my forte.Įven after NASA had electronic computers, John Glenn requested that Katherine personally recheck the computer calculations before his 1962 Friendship 7 flight – the first American mission to orbit Earth. “Her genius and legend may have been hidden from me, but not her abiding faith, not her genuine love.As a human computer, Katherine calculated the trajectory for astronaut Alan Shepard’s 1961 Freedom 7 mission to space – the first spaceflight for an American.Įarly on, when they said they wanted the capsule to come down at a certain place, they were trying to compute when it should start. ![]() “She honored me the way she should have been honored when she was first starting out,” Dr. He said he knew nothing about her role and accomplishments at NASA and for the nation, but she treated him, a nervous 24- year-old, like he had been preaching for decades. Johnson, a member of the church who sang with the choir, mentored young people and served as chair of the church finance committee. Blount, president of Union Pres- byterian Seminary in Richmond, said he was a young minister starting out at Carver Memorial Presbyterian Church in Newport News when he met Mrs. “There are few people who fought as good a fight, finished as difficult a course and all along kept the faith as Katherine Johnson,” Rep. Johnson and her colleagues’ work as “human computers.” James “Jim” Johnson, for years before he ever read Margot Lee Shetterly’s book “Hidden Figures’” about Mrs. Johnson and her second husband, retired Lt. “Bobby” Scott, said during the service that he knew Mrs. ![]() Johnson’s family with the flag that was flying over the center the day she died. Johnson joined as a student at West Virginia State College in 1935.Ĭlayton Turner, director of NASA’s Langley Research Center, spoke at the service and presented Mrs. Warner and the international president Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, which Mrs. Her family received an outpouring of tributes, some of which were read during the service, includ- ing from former President Obama, who awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015, First Lady Melania Trump, U.S. ![]() “Grandma, because of you, our world will forever be unlimited,” grandson Michael Moore said. Johnson was remembered not just as a brilliant mathematician whose calculations helped put astronauts on the Moon, but as a faithful church leader and loving mother and grandmother who was humble and never boasted about her groundbreaking work at NASA. Jemison, the first African-American woman in space. Melvin was joined by fellow astronauts Dr. “We can’t calculate the speed that she’s traveling to get to heaven.” “I think about the journey that she’s going on now,” he continued. “She stood in the gap between the known and the unknown. ![]() Johnson had retired just a few years earlier. He was a young engineer at NASA-Langley in Hampton in the late 1980s and Mrs. Johnson through the National Technical Association, an organization of minority technical professionals who encourage youngsters to enter STEM fields and mentor young professionals in those areas. Melvin, a Lynchburg native who earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Richmond and a master’s from the University of Virginia, said he first met Mrs. More than 700 people attended the service at the Hampton University Convocation Center.Īstronaut Leland D. Johnson, who calculated rocket trajectories and Earth orbits for NASA’s early space missions and was later the subject of a book and portrayed in the 2016 movie “Hidden Figures,” about pioneering black female aerospace workers, died Feb. HAMPTON - Three African-American astronauts joined hundreds of other mourners Saturday, March 7, at a funeral service for trailblazing mathematician and NASA pioneer Katherine G.
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