Pioneering black NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson dies

NASA says pioneering black mathematician Katherine Johnson has died

Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who calculated rocket trajectories and earth orbits for NASA's 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.

TITUSVILLE, Fla. - Space exploration depends heavily on math and the laws of physics to help determine the weight of things and the speed needed to send a craft into orbit.

Mathematician Katherine Johnson worked on the calculations that helped sync Apollo’s lunar lander with the service modules that stayed in the moon's orbit.   She also did trajectory analysis for Alan Shepard’s mission.  Johnson, who was portrayed in the film Hidden Figures, about black female aerospace workers has passed away at age 101, and NASA is paying homage to her on their official twitter accounts. 

"Like a lot of things in NASA, they are realizing people reach their 80s, and they have a story to tell and the Hidden Figures ladies...that was definitely something that many of us didn’t know about," said Mark Marquette, a space historian at the Titusville American Space Museum. 

Marquette says the 2016 Oscar-nominated movie brought Johnson's story and the story of her colleagues to a huge audience.  After it was released, the museum received a lot of inquiries about the African-American math wonder women.

"And people who embrace mathematics are in an engineering group all their own," Marquette said.

"Katherine Johnson's tool of the trade was a slide rule,"  Marquette added. "The baby boomers know it well, you can get many math functions, like trigonometry, some sign co-sign algebra and so forth."

Until 1958, Johnson and other black women worked in a racially segregated computing unit at what is now called Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.  Women, and especially women of color, have achieved many goals in the space program.  Marquette said Johnson’s legacy is a gift of inspiration to female aspiring engineers, scientists, and astronauts.

"She is an example of what they can do in today’s world thanks to the glass ceiling being broken by so many predecessors."