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Revised Post: Katherine Johnson Birthdate: August 26, 1918 Early Life & Career: Katherine Johnson, born in 1918, was an African American mathematician who is best known for her work done for NASA. She was raised in West Virginia as one of the four children [1]. During her childhood, she faced hardship to complete a proper education as a Black student. Her parents pushed for an education for her and her siblings but were limited due to segregated schools. Katherine excelled in school, starting high school at just 10 years old and finishing at 13 [1][2]. She would move on to go to West Virginia State College where she met her mentor and mathematics professor Dr. William Claytor. She graduated from college summa cum laude at just 18 years old with a degree in French and math [1][2].

                 In 1939, Katherine married James “Jimmie” Goble, and in the same year was also invited to integrate West Virginia University as one of three black students [1][2]. She studied math there, but soon decided not to finish her degree and instead start a family. She returned to West Virginia and had three daughters with Jimmie from 1940–1944. In 1951, Johnson had to move to Newport News, VA because her home caught on fire. This move presented a job opportunity for female mathematicians at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).
                 At NACA, Katherine was considered a “human computer” among other women because they were tasked to complete all the engineering calculations. During this time of segregation, Johnson was separated from her White colleagues in a Black-women-only division. At the office, she was known to rebel against this segregation and would often involve herself with her White colleagues. In 1956, Jimmie died of a brain tumor. Three years later, she would go on to meet James “Jim” Johnson and marry him in 1959 [1]. In 1958, NACA was incorporated into the newly formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which banned segregation [3]. As a member of the NASA Space Task Group, she co-authored a paper on calculations for space orbit. She was the first woman in her division to have her name on a published paper. She would go on to co-author 26 research reports throughout her career [3].
                 From 1961–1963, she worked on NASA’s Mercury program to calculate paths for Alan Shepard’s Freedom 7, John Glenn’s Friendship 7 (the first U.S. astronaut to orbit earth), and the 1969 Apollo 11 which sent three men to the moon for the first time [3]. These were the most notable achievements of her career until her retirement in 1989.

Pain Point and Innovation: Before Katherine, NASA was not able to calculate the trajectory for several space missions which was preventing the U.S. from advancing spacecraft milestones that other countries were reaching. She was able to help solve this problem with her advanced mathematic knowledge. Katherine made groundbreaking mathematic solutions for America’s most notable and earliest milestones in space. She solved the solutions for the spacecraft orbit paths to go around the Earth and land on the Moon [4]. NASA used Katherine’s mathematics for several crucial space missions and could not have accomplished them without her.

Impact and Legacy: Katherine’s impact stretches from co-authoring more than 20 scientific papers to being instrumental in NASA’s early missions of Project Apollo, the Space Shuttle, and the Earth Resources Technology Satellite. Her name became more widely known after the 2016 film “Hidden Figures” where her life story is portrayed. She has since be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2015, as well as being honored in the NASA Independent Verification and Validation Facility in 2019. West Virginia has marked August 26 as “Katherine Johnson Day” to celebrate her impact and legacy [5].

References [1] https://wams.nyhistory.org/growth-and-turmoil/cold-war-beginnings/katherine-johnson/#:~:text=After%20high%20school%2C%20she%20enrolled,and%20Jimmie%20married%20in%201939. [2] https://www.katherinejohnsonfoundation.org/biography/ [3] https://www.britannica.com/science/space-exploration/Major-milestones [4] https://www.nasa.gov/learning-resources/for-kids-and-students/who-was-katherine-johnson-grades-k-4/#:~:text=She%20figured%20out%20the%20paths,astronauts%20into%20orbit%20around%20Earth [5] https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/katherine-johnsons-continuing-legacy-at-ivv-beyond/#:~:text=Katherine%20co%2Dauthored%20more%20than,the%20Earth%20Resources%20Technology%20Satellite 155.33.134.67 (talk) 02:32, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

2024, Induction into Women In Aviation International Pioneer Hall of Fame https://www.wai.org/2024-pioneer-hall-of-fame#:~:text=Congratulations%20to%20the%20WAI%20Pioneer%20Hall%20of%20Fame%202024%20Inductees!&text=The%20late%20Katherine%20Johnson%20is,of%20NASA's%201960s%20Space%20Race 216.15.0.132 (talk) 20:30, 1 March 2025 (UTC}

2024, Induction into International Air and Space Hall of Fame, https://www.flyingmag.com/awards/international-air-space-hall-of-fame-announces-2024-inductees/ 216.15.0.132 (talk) 20:37, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson (1918–2020) was an American mathematician whose knowledge of analytic geometry and orbital mechanics set her up as one of NASA’s principal early “human computers.” Her work was foundational to U.S. manned spaceflight and helped reshape the possibilities for women and African Americans in STEM. [1] Johnson was born in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., an early math talent noted that she “counted everything” as a child. [2] Because her county was without a Black high school, her family made a move so she could continue studying. She enrolled at West Virginia State College at 15, where mathematician W. W. S. Claytor developed advanced classes to hone her skills. [3] She graduated with highest honors in 1937 and started teaching before joining the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) in 1953. [1] When NASA first began planning human spaceflight, Johnson worked out the trajectory parameters for the 1961 Freedom 7 mission, defining launch windows and splashdown coordinates imperative for astronaut recovery. [1] Johnson’s “innovation” was to apply technical (high precision) manual mathematical techniques to navigation of the orbiting space — at the time when electronic computers were in their early days, unreliable, and mistrusted. She set out first to solve a problem that was a central challenge in early space exploration: the absence of precise, human-validated trajectory computations that could prove safe for astronauts. Her most famous contribution took place on John Glenn's 1962 orbital mission. Though an IBM computer had devised the flight path, Glenn refused to fly until Johnson personally verified calculations by hand, insisting he would proceed if "she says it’s good." [5] Her confirmation helped the first American orbital flight succeed and built U.S. status in the Cold War space competition. Johnson continued serving critical functions in the Apollo program, including calculating the orbital dynamics required for the lunar module to rendezvous with the command module — an operation crucial to landing on the Moon in 1969. [6] She also provided backup navigation charts that might be accessible in the event of failures on the surface. She also worked on Space Shuttle projects and Earth-resources satellite analysis before retiring in 1986. Over 30 years, she produced and/or co-authored 26 technical reports. [1] Her work remains influential. Modern aerospace engineering depends on sophisticated software, yet the mathematical principles she refined — orbital geometry, launch-window analysis, re-entry modeling — still guide mission planning among both NASA and private spaceflight companies. As a result, her work is not outdated; in fact, it transcends the traditional era in computer science. In addition to her technical impact, Johnson’s career altered social and institutional norms. Her appearance, especially following the publication and movie release of Hidden Figures, contributed to a wider recognition of Black women’s contributions to science. [8] The 2016 announcement of the Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility further solidified her place in history as the pioneer of mathematics and at equity within STEM. [1] The life lived by Johnson tells us how intelligence as well as perseverance and courage can change scientific history. Her contributions laid down the maths behind human spaceflight and continue to inspire other scholars. References: [1] NASA. (2020). Katherine Johnson Biography. https://www.nasa.gov/people-of-nasa/katherine-g-johnson/ [2] NASA Science. (2020). Katherine Johnson profile. https://science.nasa.gov/people/katherine-johnson/ [3] Katherine Johnson Foundation. (2024). Life & legacy. https://www.katherine-johnson.org/ [4] Britannica. (2024). Katherine Johnson. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Katherine-Johnson-mathematician [5] NASA Langley. (2020). Katherine Johnson biography. https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/langley/katherine-johnson-biography/ [6] Biography.com. (2024). Katherine Johnson and Hidden Figures. https://www.biography.com/scientists/katherine-g-johnson Wiki1234RL (talk) 23:06, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is not requesting anything. NotJamestack (✉️|📝) 23:24, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done: AI-generated edit requests are not permitted. Please see WP:LLMTALK. Slomo666 (talk) 23:31, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]