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- Finally, I can become a real research mathematician.
- Thank you!
- Welcome to the West Area Computing unit. Katherine you are assigned to the Langley research unit as a computer.
- I am no better than anyone else, and nobody else is better than me!
- you can't be in here you are a woman! Only men are allowed in here!
- Katherine Johnson’s graduation from West Virginia University with a degree in French and Mathematics at the age of 14. She graduated with a dream to work with math.
- you got it John Glen!
- I will only feel safe in space if you check the computer's work Katherine!
- Katherine’s first day working at NASA in the West Area Computing unit, which was a group of African American women who manually performed complex mathematical calculations for the program's engineers. This group was run by Dorothy Vaughan. Katherine would be moved to the Langley research unit as a computer for NASA's engineers 1953.
- By: Katherine Johnson and Ted Skopinski
- YAYYY!
- Katherine was not allowed to join the meetings at NASA for a while because she was a black woman. In 1958 she joined one of the meetings with the white men. She needed to join these meetings so she could calculate the landing place of the friendship 7 rocket.
- Katherine was asked by John Glen to check the calculations, for friendship 7, made by NASA's IBM main electronic computer. John was not confident with the calculations of the machine. He said that if Katherine checked it over he would feel safe to go into space. this also brought America one step closer to winning the space race agency Russia.
- In the year 1960, Katherine got her name on a research paper she wrote with a male partner. This was important because during that time women did not get their names on papers that they wrote. They would do the research but not get credit for it, only the man’s name would be on the paper.
- At 9:35 a.m on July 16, 1969 Apollo 11 was launched and Katherine watched all her hard work pay off by successfully putting a man on the moon and bring him back. The success of Apollo 11 ended the space race between America and Russia that was going on for 20 years.
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