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Katherine Johnson was born August 26, 1918 in White Sulfur Springs West Virginia
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She started high school in 1929. She was only the age of 10.
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In 1937, she graduated from West Virginia State University.
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In 1939 she was selected to be one of the first African American students to enroll at West Virginia University at Morgantown.
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In 1939 she married a young man named James Goble.
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In 1953 she began work as a computer at NASA.
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In 1956 her husband James Goble passed away after 17 years of marriage.
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In 1960 she co authored a paper on calculations for placing a spacecraft into orbit.
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In 1961 she calculated the path for Freedom 7. Freedom 7 was a space capsule.
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In 1962 John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth. By that time, NASA had begun to use electronic computers. However, before Glenn left the ground, he wanted to make sure that the electronic computer had planned his flight correctly. He asked to have Katherine double check the computer’s calculations before lift off.
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Katherine later became apart of the team that calculated where and when to launch the rocket for the Apollo 11 mission of 1969, which sent the first three men to the Moon.
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Katherine retired from NASA in 1986 after 30 years of working there.
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In 2015 she was awarded the U.S Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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Katherine Johnson died on February 24, 2020. She died at the age of 101 years old.
