She would later work on the Apollo moon missions, helping synch the lunar module with the orbiting command and service module, and then the space shuttle programme.Д«ut Johnson was also a вЂњ coloured computerвЂќ at a time when laws still enforced racial segregation and there was still much opposition to integration and equal rights for non-white US citizens.

Glenn apparently personally requested that Johnson verify the flight trajectory that had been worked out by one of the new electronic computers. In 1958, she joined the newly formed NASA, where she calculated the flight trajectory for the missions of first American in space Alan Shepard and first American to orbit the Earth, John Glenn. Johnson became one of a group of human computers who calculated (using slide rule and log tables) the flight dynamics of aircraft to help improve their safety and operation. Not the super-fast electronic technology of today, or even lumbering mechanical valve-driven machinery, but people. In the 1950s, the US government was continuing to develop its flight capabilities, for which it required computers. Katherine became a wife, a mother and a teacher, and her story might have ended there, if it hadnвЂ™t been for her drive to continue with her mathematics. Her ability in mathematics was such that she continued her schooling beyond high school (very unusual for African-American children at that time) and had graduated from college by the time she was 18. Katherine Coleman was born in 1918 in West Virginia and showed very early on that she was no ordinary child. In telling Johnson and her colleaguesвЂ™ stories, the film shed light not only on advances in technology but also the status of black people in society and the role of women in the workplace and in science. And I have seen it at least twice since when I have led discussions about the significance of the film, drawing on my own experience of working in the space industry. I have rarely watched a film that has moved me as much as Hidden Figures did when I first saw it. JohnsonвЂ™s story and significant contributions to the US space programme, along with those of Dorothy Vaughan (a computer scientist) and Mary Jackson (an engineer), were brought to widespread public attention by the 2016 book Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly and film of the same name. Add a few more facts вЂ“ she was a woman, she was black and working in the US in the 1950s to early 1960s вЂ“ and the scale of her success becomes more apparent. But on paper neither of those facts would make her stand out from the crowd. She was a mathematician and she worked for NASA. But up until a few years ago, hardly anyone had heard of her or her achievements. Katherine Johnson, who has died at the age of 101, was an amazing woman.

Katherine johnson nasa young