Katherine Johnson: NASA's Pioneering Female Physicist (thenewstack.io)

destinyland writes: Tuesday's State of the Union address included a shout-out to Katherine Johnson, the pioneering African American mathematician and physicist who calculated the trajectory of Alan Shepherd's 1961 space trip. "Her reputation was so strong that John Glenn asked her to recheck the calculations made by the new electronic computers before the mission on which he became the first American to orbit the Earth," notes one technology reporter. NASA policy at the time was to not acknowledge the female contributors to scientific papers, though "She literally wrote the textbook on rocket science," according to one NASA official, noting that her impact literally reaches all the way to the moon. At a ceremony in November, Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the 97-year-old pioneer continues to encourage young people to also pursue careers in technology, science, engineering and math.

Comments

Re:"Policy not to acknowledge" quote is offensive

[l2718]

What about male computers?

Because the computers were all female. There was rampant sexism at the time – in particular in that women could be computers but not research staff (with Ms. Johnson an apparent exception). But there are better ways of highlighting this sexism (of which Ms. Johnson was a victim) than by unreasonably rewriting quotes from the article

Re:Disagree

[gstoddart]

No kidding, from the Gutenberg link:

"...in June 1953, Katherine was contracted as a research mathematician at the Langley Research Center... At first she worked in a pool of women performing math calculations. Katherine has referred to the women in the pool as virtual `[computers] who wore [skirts].' Their main job was to read the data from the black boxes of planes and carry out other precise mathematical tasks. Then one day, Katherine (and a colleague) were temporarily assigned to help the all-male flight research team. Katherine's knowledge of analytic geometry helped make quick allies of male bosses and colleagues to the extent that,'they forgot to return me to the pool.' While the racial and gender barriers were always there, Katherine says she ignored them. Katherine was assertive, asking to be included in editorial meetings (where no women had gone before.) She simply told people she had done the work and that she belonged."

This isn't some flunky doing the boring calculations beneath the principal researchers ... this is someone actively contributing to the outcomes, but who got ignored when it came time for credit.

She plotted backup navigational charts for astronauts in case of electronic failures. In 1962, when NASA used computers for the first time to calculate John Glenn's orbit around Earth, officials called on her to verify the computer's numbers. Ms. Johnson later worked directly with real computers. Her ability and reputation for accuracy helped to establish confidence in the new technology. She calculated the trajectory for the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the Moon. Later in her career, she worked on the Space Shuttle program, the Earth Resources Satellite, and on plans for a mission to Mars.

This is a woman who deserves a ton of credit for actually being a significant part of history at NASA. She sure as hell wasn't just sitting around adding up a few thing here and there.

Re:We now get Monday "White Male Guilt" articles?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a large amount of anti-male sexism going on today, you are correct about that.

I share your optimism that in 100 years, we won't have to worry about a misandrist society that leads to the conditions where 93% of work fatalities are men, 80% of suicides are men, 77% of homicide victims are men.