Women who changed the world: Katherine Johnson (1918-2020)

Katherine Johnson, NASA pioneer African-American mathematician, is dead at 101 years old.

Katherine Johnson worked at the Langley Research Center (West Virginia) from 1953 to 1986. Her calculations allowed the United States to conquer the Moon.

NASA paid tribute to the scientist: "She was a hero of America, a pioneer whose legacy will never be forgotten," wrote James Bridenstine, head of the US space agency.

The career of this great figure among black Americans inspired the film The Hidden Figures, released in 2016, adapted from the book by Margot Lee Shetterly, which recounted the all too often overlooked contribution of black women in the American conquest of the 'space.

The scientist had remained relatively unknown until President Barack Obama awarded her, in 2015, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the highest civilian distinctions in the United States.

A graduate in mathematics, Katherine Johnson joined the American space program - the future NASA - in 1953, and had the primary task of controlling the work of her superiors using calculations.

At that time, racial segregation was still in effect in the United States, and the scientist was working as a "colored computer" with dozens of other black mathematicians, away from their white colleagues. It was not until 1958 that his team was integrated into other NASA divisions, to be part of the first manned space flight program in the United States.

During her three-decade career with the space agency, Katherine Johnson developed crucial equations that enabled the United States to send astronauts into orbit and to the Moon, formulas still used in contemporary aerospace science. In particular, she calculated the trajectories of Apollo-11, the historic mission that made Neil Armstrong the first man to walk on the Moon in 1969.

Free translation from:  https://www.lemonde.fr/sciences/article/2020/02/24/katherine-johnson-la-mathematicienne-pionniere-de-la-nasa-est-morte-a-l-age-de-101-ans_6030688_1650684.html?xtor=EPR-32280629-[a-la-une]-20200225-[zone_edito_1_titre_3]