Jackson, however, despite being the author and co-author of many research reports and being very successful in her field, Jackson became frustrated that she could not get onto the management level roles.
After completing the program, she became the first black female engineer at N ASA. However, as ‘ the classes were held at then-segregated Hampton High School’, Jackson had to obtain ‘special permission from the C ity o f Hampton’ to attend. Czar necki later suggested that Jackson should get onto a training program, after which she could be promoted to an engineer. After two years working in the section supervised by Dorothy Va ughan, Jackson ‘received an offer to work for engineer Kazimierz Czarnecki in the 4-foot by 4-foot Supersonic Pressure Tunnel’. In 1951 Jackson started work in the West Area Computing Section, t he same section as Katherine Johnson. She then went on to hold positions ‘as a bookkeeper in Hampton Institutes Health Department’ and the ‘as an Army Secretary at Fort Monroe’. S he started as a maths teacher in Calvent County but after moving back to Hampton she took a job as a ‘receptionist at the Kings Street USO Club’. Jackson was born on 9 th April 1921, she studied at the Hampton Institute and in 1942 graduated ‘with a dual degree in Maths and Physical Sciences’. Furtherm ore, among many other accolades, Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015. Johnson Computational Research Facility at NASA Langley in Hampton, Virginia opened and was named in her honor’. Katherine was also part of pioneering ‘for women to attend the agency’s scientific briefings, formerly closed-door affairs reserved for male staff members’. Glenn reportedly said that ‘ “If she says they’re good… then I’m ready to go” ’. Katherine was personally asked by John Glenn, one of the astronauts on the mission to orbit the earth in 1962, to check the orbital equations for his trajectory by hand, as he and the other astronauts were a little concerned as these had been formulated by a digital computer. She also became the first woman to have her name placed on a research report in the Flight Division in 1960. Katherine went on to conduct the ‘trajectory analysis for Alan’s Shepard’s May 1961 mission Freedom 7’. The West Area Computing section was run by Dorothy Vaughan who assigned Katherine to the Maneuver Loads Branch of the Flight Research Division, making her the first woman to be part of that division. Upon hearing the news Katherine and her family moved to Newport News in Virginia and in 1953 Katherine began working at Langley. In 1952 Katherine heard that the segregated West Area Computing section at the NACA ’s (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) Langley Laboratory ha d begun hiring. Katherine took some time off whilst she ha d her three children with husband James Goble but returned to teaching after her children were old enough. A t age 14 Katherine graduated high school and started at West Virginia State College, where she graduated ‘with a double major in mathematics and F rench ’. Va, where Katherine and her siblings could attend high school. Therefore, her father, Joshua Coleman had t o move their family 125 miles to Institute W. However due to the segregated education system in Katherine’s hometown she could only receive schooling up until 6 th grade. Va and from a very you ng age Katherine had a talent for mathematics, as she stated in 1999 ‘ “I couldn’t wait to get to high school to take algebra and geometry” ’. Johnson was born on 26 th August 1918 in White Sulphur Springs W. Their story ha s recently been brought to li ght by Margot Lee Shetterly’s book Hidden Figures : The Untold Story of the African American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race which was turned into a n Oscar nominated film in 2016. O riginally known as ‘ human computers’, they were responsible for calculating complex maths equations f o r various airplanes and space flights, but all three went on to play a significant role in the Space Race.
Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughan, three women who until recently were relatively unknown, but their work drew a path for future generations of women at NASA.
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