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

Longevity pays off

[rmdingler]

Katherine Johnson seems like a genuine candidate for long overdue recognition.

Good thing she lived to 97!

Disagree

[Chrisq]

Certainly some of the claims of unfair treatment of women is dubious, especially the "I'm not included socially" or "they act too friendly and familiar" sort. However this is genuinely shocking:

NASA policy at the time was to not acknowledge the female contributors to scientific papers, though "She literally wrote the textbook on rocket science,"

We should acknowledge it as such and not put it down to some SWJ agenda

Re:Africans are not less smart

[arth1]

Africans are widely [weasel words] accepted [by whom?] to have superior [reference needed] social ability [definition needed].

Literally

[110010001000]

"She literally wrote the textbook on rocket science," Someone doesn't know what literally means.

Re:Africans are not less smart

[PopeRatzo]

What is more ironically amusing is that people who use irrelevant statistics to determine something as personal as individual traits such as intelligence are ironically showing a bit of stupidity themselves.

It's something that a particular set of racists do whenever they are faced with a brilliant person of a different race. The only way they can make themselves feel better under those circumstances is to point to some discredited "scientific study" that demonstrates their intellectual superiority as a group..