In 2015, President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is given to people who have made “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.” In 2016, NASA astronaut Leland D. She also was involved with planning for a mission to Mars. Johnson was figuring out complex mathematics for space flights years before NASA came to rely on computers.Īfter that, Johnson did calculations that helped with the start of the Space Shuttle program. As NASA puts it today, “None of the other women had ever asked questions before, but by asking questions, Johnson began to stand out.” Engineers would assign her mathematical problems to solve, which she did while challenging the status quo and asking them why and how they were assigning the problems in the first place. Johnson started working at NASA in 1953, back when it was still called the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. The film told the story that author Margot Lee Shetterly detailed in her book by the same name, about Black female mathematicians who worked at NASA during the space race. Henson portrayed her in the 2016 film Hidden Figures (as part of the Screen Actors Guild Award-winning cast).

Much of the world learned that story-and the fact that Johnson even existed-more than a half-century later, when Taraji P.

“If she says the computer is right,” he said. Astronaut John Glenn asked Johnson to double-check the math against a computer that had calculated Friendship 7’s path in space.

Katherine johnson nasa children