Johnson's math talents later helped determine the trajectory of the Apollo 11 flight that landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon in July 1969. They also calculated John Glenn's course, as the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962.Īccording to the book, in 1962, Glenn asked that Johnson herself re-check the figures one last time before he embarked on the mission. Henson-known for her role in the TV series "Empire" and for her Oscar nomination in the 2008 film "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" The movie comes out in January, starring Taraji P. The heroines of the story are Dorothy Vaughan, Katherine Johnson and Mary Jackson. How can nobody knows the story'?" she recalled in an interview with AFP. "My husband was like, 'Wait a minute, I cannot believe this. It was not until Shetterly's husband heard about the women, during a visit with Shetterly's father, that she realized their story could-and should-be written in book form. The mathematicians provided pivotal contributions to the US space program, starting in the 1940s through to the 1960s, when the nation first sent men to orbit and then walk on the Moon. Shetterly, herself an African-American, was born in 1969, and remembers the women as "normal" middle-class types, the mothers of friends who serve peanut butter sandwiches to kids. Some of the female mathematicians worked with the author's father, an engineer at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia, a southern US state where racial segregation was the norm. Henson-known for her role in the TV series "Empire" and for her Oscar nomination in the 2008 film "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"-and Octavia Spencer, who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2011 film "The Help." ![]() This remarkable story has been told in the book "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly, which was published in September.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |