Posted on 02/24/2020 8:58:07 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who calculated rocket trajectories and earth orbits for NASAs early space missions and was later portrayed in the 2016 hit film Hidden Figures, about pioneering black female aerospace workers, has died. She was 101.
Johnson died Monday of natural causes at a retirement community in Newport News, Virginia, family attorney Donyale Y. H. Reavis told The Associated Press.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement that Johnson helped our nation enlarge the frontiers of space even as she made huge strides that also opened doors for women and people of color.
Johnson was one of the computers who solved equations by hand during NASAs early years and those of its precursor organization, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.
Johnson and other black women initially worked in a racially segregated computing unit in Hampton, Virginia, that wasnt officially dissolved until NACA became NASA in 1958. Signs had dictated which bathrooms the women could use.
Johnson focused on airplanes and other research at first. But her work at NASAs Langley Research Center eventually shifted to Project Mercury, the nations first human space program.
Our office computed all the (rocket) trajectories, Johnson told The Virginian-Pilot newspaper in 2012. You tell me when and where you want it to come down, and I will tell you where and when and how to launch it.
In 1961, Johnson did trajectory analysis for Alan Shepards Freedom 7 Mission, the first to carry an American into space. The next year, she manually verified the calculations of a nascent NASA computer, an IBM 7090, which plotted John Glenns orbits around the planet.
Get the girl to check the numbers, a computer-skeptical Glenn had insisted in the days before the launch.
(Excerpt) Read more at wtop.com ...
Unfortunately, one of the more ignorant statements on the thread.
Do you have any detailed information to support your claim? Anything?
I gotta go with Fury on this one, although I'd soften the statement to be:"Unfortunately, one of the more mistaken statements on the thread."
I'm looking at this lady and her pictures, and I totally see that she is black, if perhaps a light-skinned black person. The facial features are those of a black person.
Yeah, and?
ML/NJ
OK Boomer.
But he would have us believe that he could have written this paper while in HS.
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19640016000.pdf
Certaily if ml/nj had been working for NASA in the 1960's we'd have a Trump Tower on Mars by now. : ),
Look are her hair and skin color. We can see where she got the math gene.
Katherine Johnson as a child, pictured in the middle with her mother and siblings.
“’The girl’ always bugged me..”
I’m a northerner transplanted in the south, and I always feel creepy when people call me “Miss ____”. To me it sounds like they feel subservient to me in some way. Now I realize it’s a term of respect for older ladies — but it still kind of bugs me.
“I look forward to watching the movie.”
The movie was excellent. I was skeptical at first, as DH was in missile defense his entire career and there were many cases when minorities were hired over better-qualified people to bump up the quotas. Work suffered. This movie was nothing like this. The ladies were hired because they were geniuses; quotas were not a “thing” then.
It's hard to overcome our programing.
My Dad built spacecraft systems for most of his career so this will be enjoyable for me. Dad managed the Radioisotope Thermal Generator project at GE for the two Voyager spacecraft that have left the solar system! Amazing stuff.
All copies at our library are checked out or on hold. I just added it to my Netflix queue.
At least, 80-85%, correct? Good grief...
I was in highschool in the late 1960’s, and stories of Goddard’s team losing rocket after rocket were still main-stream rocket science. Your claim to be able to solve the multi-body equations Ms. Johnson would have had to do just struck me as quite a ... feat.
A) I didn't claim that; and
B) She didn't solve any multi-body equations so far as I can tell. (Two is not considered multi-body.)
The real problem is figuring out the effect of atmospheric drag; and from what I can tell they had data upon which to build their model.
Papers that include statements like:
for small angles x:... aren't real mathematical papers. They're intended to impress the unwashed.sin x = x
cos x = 1
ML/NJ
Upon checking via Wiki, the obit sold the lady short. She had a solid background in math and physics including orbital mechanics. The obit in my local rag only stressed the calculation aspect. The text referred to a slide rule when the photo clearly showed a Frieden calculator on her desk. No mention that she used her knowledge of orbital mechanics to make the calculations, not just plug values into someone else’s formulas.
Gotchya:) Thanks for expanding.
Since it’s obvious you didn’t read the linked pdf, I’ll leave you to your delusions. Peace.
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