JQPublic1
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- Aug 10, 2012
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while Glenn was the hero who risked his life. The mathematicians who crunched the numbers necessary to bring success went unheralded.
At the time I envisioned NASA as the domain of brainy White males
in white smocks with clipboards in hand. Television brought images of the control room where rows of white faces sat in front of monitors and weird looking machinery. I marveled at the seeming wizardry and silently gave credit to those White men for being mathematical geniuses.
Fifty six years later I discovered just how wrong I was. The success of Glen's historic flight depended on a female mathematician who helped with the calculations. Does that shock you? In the1960s, that women could be so deeply involved in a man's domain was astounding in and of itself. But the story of this female mathematician took on an even more incredible turn when I earned she was ... OMG,! She is BLACK!
I was floored. After all these years this story is just now surfacing. The shock was just beginning to wear off when I discovered there was not just one, there were two other Black female mathematical geniuses working for NASA at that time.
A film is being made to finally give these fine Americans their just recognition and rewards. I am chartering a bus to take as many people with me as I can to join me when in viewing it on the big screen.
How three black women helped send John Glenn into orbit
Katherine Johnson at Nasa Langley Research Center in 1980. Photograph: Nasa