Katherine Johnson sat at her desk, surrounded by papers covered in numbers and equations. Her pencil scrawled across her page, scratching out the calculations. This wasn’t just any math problem. If she could find the solution to this question, she would help send a man to space!

It’s not a job she got by accident. The astronaut, John Glenn, had made a special request.

Up until this point in the early 1960s, mathematicians did complex calculations by hand. Yes, even for space travel! A pencil and paper ruled the day. But around the time John Glenn was set to go to space, a brand new technology promised to take human ambition to new heights: Computers.

A computer had already calculated John Glenn’s flight path. But John didn’t trust it. Not yet.

So, he asked for Katherine.

“Get the girl to check it,” he said. “If she says the numbers are good, I’m ready to go.”

Katherine was a human computer.

She picked up her pencil and got to work. She had to calculate the exact path the spacecraft, known as Friendship 7, would take as it orbited Earth.She needed to know its every move to figure out precisely where it would land when it returned. One small mistake, and the mission could fail. One miscalculation, and a man’s life could be in danger.

Katherine’s mind was brilliant – fast and precise. She checked every number, every equation, and every calculation the computer had made.

Hours later, she looked up from her work.

The computer was right. She had made sure of it. This mission was ready for liftoff.

I’m Nicole Pringle. And this is Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls.

A fairy tale podcast about the real-life rebel women who inspire us.

On this episode, Katherine Johnson, fearless trailblazer and mathematician extraordinaire.

Katherine was born in 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. Back then, life was very different for Black families in America. Her father told stories about people in their county who had been hurt, and even killed, for the color of their skin. It was a scary time to grow up.

Katherine’s parents were determined to give their four children the best education possible. There was just one problem: White Sulphur Springs didn’t have a high school for Black students. So at the beginning of the school year, Katherine’s parents moved their whole family over 100 miles away to a town named Institute, West Virginia.

This special town had a school that Black children could attend. As soon as Katherine started school, her teachers noticed that she was uniquely capable. By the time she was 10 years old, Katherine had skipped several grades and started high school. Katherine zoomed through that too, and at age 14, she enrolled at West Virginia State College. This was a unique school where Black students could learn from Black professors!

She studied everything she could – especially math. One math professor saw something extraordinary in Katherine. He told her “You would make a good research mathematician.” He encouraged her to take difficult classes that taught her to apply mathematical concepts to real-world problems.

By 18 years old, Katherine had graduated summa cum laude – the highest honor possible – with degrees in both mathematics and French. She was the youngest person in her entire graduating class.

…But now what? In 1937, there weren’t many jobs for Black women mathematicians. In fact, there weren’t many jobs for ANY women mathematicians, no matter what color their skin was. Katherine was bright, hard working and well educated, but she found herself with nowhere to go!

So, Katherine became a teacher. At 19 years old, she moved away from her family to teach French and music in Marion, Virginia. That’s where she met James Goble. They fell in love and got married.

Not long after, she and James had three daughters together. For years, Katherine focused on her family. She left her teaching job so she could stay home with her babies. And yet, she never stopped loving math. And she never stopped seeing the world through numbers.

Then, in 1953, Katherine heard something that would change her life. A family friend told her that the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics – NACA for short – was hiring Black women mathematicians at a place called Langley Research Center in Virginia.

This was incredible news! Jobs like this were rare, and offered a unique opportunity. She now had a choice to make: She could return to teaching, or she could dive into the unknown as a mathematician. Katherine didn’t hesitate. She chose NACA. After all, as her professor had said years ago, she would make a brilliant mathematician.

When Katherine arrived at Langley in 1953, she joined a talented group of Black women mathematicians called the West Area Computers. The women worked as ‘human computers’ – that’s right, people who do computations. Their job was to solve complex mathematical calculations by hand for the engineers. They had to do it that way, because computers as we know them didn’t even exist yet.

Katherine and the rest of the West Area Computers were talented and highly capable. In spite of this, they weren’t treated like all of the other employees. NACA was segregated, which meant that Black and white people were kept separate. Women of any race were typically secretaries, rather than engineers or leaders making decisions. Katherine and the other Black women had to use different bathrooms than white women. They had to eat in a different cafeteria. There were signs that said ‘Colored Computers’ on their office door. They couldn’t even put their names on the research reports they helped create.

Katherine knew this wasn’t right. She knew she was just as smart – if not smarter – than anyone else there. But she had lived with segregation and racism her whole life.

She decided to focus on what she could control: her work. And she was determined to do it so well that they would have to pay attention to her.

Katherine had been working with airplanes – analyzing flight test data and investigating turbulence. But then, in the late 1950s, something exciting happened. America decided to go to space! The Space Race had begun.

In 1958, NACA became NASA – the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. And even better news: NASA banned segregation. It didn’t fix all the problems overnight. But at least it meant no more separate bathrooms. And no more ‘Colored’ signs.

There was a vibrant energy buzzing through the corridors of NASA. Katherine was ready for the opportunities that came with the goal of sending Americans to space. She heard about a new team called the Space Task Group, and she was curious to learn more about this new opportunity. She wasn’t officially invited into the briefing meetings, but she showed up anyway. There, she learned important information that would help her solve the most challenging problems – and bring Americans one step closer to the stars.

NASA was starting completely from scratch. There was no blueprint to go to space. No textbook that explained how to calculate for changes in pressure or trajectory as you exited the stratosphere. Katherine was setting out to push new bounds of science and technology and to go where no one else had dared to go before.

Katherine became one of the first women to work on America’s space program. She had to think critically about completely new kinds of math – calculating the paths that the spacecrafts would take as they flew around the Earth and beyond. She studied a celestial globe to help her understand the stars and planets better.

As Katherine solved difficult and complicated problems for NASA, people started to take notice. In 1960, she became the first woman in her division to have her name listed as an author on a research report. After years of invisible work, Katherine was finally getting credit for her brilliant mind.

And this work was essential. She calculated the path for Freedom 7, the spacecraft that carried Alan Shepard to become the first American in space in 1961.

And then, John Glenn called. Could Katherine outsmart the computer which calculated his spacecraft’s trajectory?

Katherine didn’t let him down. She checked every calculation, analyzed every number.

With Katherine’s confirmation, John Glenn was ready to climb into his spacecraft, Friendship 7. And on February 20, 1962, he became the first American to orbit the Earth.

He went around the globe, once, twice, three times! Then, he prepared his spacecraft for landing in the Atlantic Ocean, just as Katherine planned it. In a woosh, the vessel splashed into the water, and a NASA team was there to bring John Glenn to solid land. He returned home safely – all thanks to Katherine’s math.

As Katherine said: ‘It was an assignment and it was simple.’ But of course, it wasn’t simple at all. It was incredibly complex, and she had accomplished something amazing.

But Katherine’s biggest challenge was still ahead: putting a man on the MOON.

On May 25, 1961 President John F. Kennedy announced to the entire world that Americans had an ambitious new goal: Make it to the moon! This ‘moonshot’ was an inspiration to many people around the world.

For Katherine, this was an instruction. In 1969, NASA prepared for the Apollo 11 mission – the mission that would land the first humans on the moon. Katherine played a critical role in calculating where and when to launch the rocket.

She and her team had a difficult puzzle to solve: The moon is constantly moving around the Earth. The Earth is constantly spinning on its own axis. The rocket would need to travel thousands and thousands of miles through space. Katherine’s math calculations would not only need to make sure the astronauts could make it to the moon – but that they could make it safely home as well.

Katherine worked on the geometry of the flight path, using her deep understanding of math to map the astronauts’ entire journey. She would not let her country down.

And then on July 20th, 1969… after years of calculations and careful planning, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the surface of the moon. Millions of people around the world watched on television. It was one of the greatest achievements in human history. And Katherine Johnson’s math made it possible.

As Katherine had said about crunching the numbers by hand for John Glenn: ‘It was an assignment and it was simple.’ But of course, it wasn’t simple at all. It was incredibly complex, and she had accomplished something amazing.

Throughout her career, Katherine authored or co-authored 26 research reports. She worked on the Space Shuttle program. She inspired countless other women and people of color to pursue careers in math and science.
In 1986, after 33 years as a research mathematician, Katherine retired from NASA.

Throughout her career, Katherine authored or co-authored 26 research reports. She worked on the Space Shuttle program. She inspired countless other women and people of color to pursue careers in math and science.
In 1986, after 33 years as a research mathematician, Katherine retired from NASA.

But her story doesn’t end there. As the years went by, more and more people learned about Katherine’s incredible contributions to NASA and the space program. In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded Katherine the Presidential Medal of Freedom – one of the highest honors in the United States.

In 2016, NASA named a building after her: the Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility. Katherine had gone from unnamed research reports to a building at NASA! With her name on it!

Katherine loved to talk about how important it is to stay curious and love what you do. As her daughter remembered: Katherine would always say, ‘I was just doing my job and doing it well.’

Even in her later years, Katherine kept her mind sharp by doing crossword puzzles and playing card games. She spent time with her daughters, granddaughters and GREAT granddaughters. Katherine’s great granddaughter, a middle schooler, loves math. She said that growing up in Katherine’s family, math was never seen as hard.

Katherine Johnson passed away in 2020 at the age of 101. She lived a long, remarkable life, breaking barriers and reaching for the stars – literally!

Katherine faced racism and sexism, but she never let that stop her from doing what she loved. She proved that it doesn’t matter what you look like or where you come from. If you work hard, stay determined, and find something that excites you, you can help change the world.

What started as a natural knack for numbers took Katherine to calculating impossible trajectories and helped send humans to the moon. And she showed us all that with enough persistence and passion, the sky is truly not the limit – it’s just the beginning.

CREDITS:
This podcast is a production of Rebel Girls. It’s based on the book series Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls.

This episode was narrated by ME, Nicole Pringle. It was written and produced by Danielle Roth, and edited by Haley Dapkus. Direction by Ashton Carter. Sound design and mixing by Carter Wogahn.

Fact checking by Sam Gebauer. Our production coordinator was Natalie Hara. Haley Dapkus was our senior producer. Our executive producers were Anjelika Temple and Jes Wolfe.

Original theme music was composed and performed by Elettra Bargiacchi.

A special thanks to the whole Rebel Girls team, who make this podcast possible! Until next time, stay rebel!