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Vaughan had no idea then how her life was going to change, or how it would change those around her. She went into the position thinking it would be a temporary wartime job. Vaughan left her teaching job at Robert Russa Moton High School to be a human computer at the NACA (which would later become NASA) Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory during the peak of World War II. She received a full-tuition scholarship to Wilberforce University and graduated with her Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics at just 19!
Her story was captured on the big screen in 2016 in the hit blockbuster film, “Hidden Figures,” which followed the stories of three African American women mathematicians (Vaughan, Katherine Johnson and Mary Jackson), who broke through gender and race barriers in the workplace while making countless contributions to America’s early space program. While there were many hidden figures behind NASA’s early success, Dorothy Vaughan stands out. Garber First Flight Society Shrine, USA Today notes.This Black History Month, we are going on a journey through the decades to celebrate the significant contributions black astronauts, engineers, and mathematicians have made to the space program by highlighting three of these African American trailblazers. In 2017, NASA dedicated a computational research facility in her honor, and in December she was inducted into NASA’s Paul E. In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom – the highest civilian honor in the United States. Johnson, who turned 100 in August, was thankfully still present when her accolades started rolling in.
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Johnson’s contributions largely went unnoticed until 2016 when the best-selling book, followed shortly by the movie – led everyone through her courageous and groundbreaking story. Johnson was also behind the calculations of Alan Shepard’s Freedom 7 mission the year before, which made him the first American in space. That flight ended in success, making Glenn the first American to orbit Earth.
Glenn demanded that engineers “get the girl” – that is Johnson – to verify the numbers before the mission. Most famously she verified the results given by computers to calculate the orbit for John Glenn’s Friendship 7 mission – at Glenn’s own insistence. Working her way through the ranks of NASA in the racially segregated 1950s and 1960s, Johnson was one of the “colored computers” who worked on calculations for several space missions in a time when computers were not trusted. “It’s a fitting tribute to name the facility that carries on her legacy of mission-critical computations in her honor.” “I am thrilled we are honoring Katherine Johnson in this way as she is a true American icon who overcame incredible obstacles and inspired so many,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said according to USA Today.
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The facility houses programs that contribute “to the safety and success of NASA’s highest-profile missions by assuring the software on those missions performs correctly,” according to NASA.
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USA Today reports that the Katherine Johnson Independent Verification and Facility in Fairmont, West Virginia, received its new name over the weekend after being pushed in a congressional bill that was signed into law by President Donald Trump in December. But, she will never be hidden from history again – not only because there is a best-selling novel and movie detailing her contributions that broke racial and gender barriers – but also because NASA has finally honored her by renaming a facility after her. NASA research mathematician Katherine Johnson’s trailblazing brilliance was once obscured from the world.
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