Katherine Johnson and Her Experience Working on Their Space Missions in NASA

In the story, the NASA study team depicts Johnson’s first life and her experience working on their space missions. Katherine LBJ is an African American who ran for NASA from 1953 to 1986. She was a human expert. Her job in estimating the ways for spaceships to go was momental1 in helping NASA successfully move the English world into space. So, her job served to bring astronauts to the moon.

Katherine Johnson was born in 1918, in White Sulphur Springs. She grew up with a janitor and farmer as a father, and a mother as a teacher. Johnson’s early education was advanced considering how smart she was. Her parents had her put into private schools and higher-level courses. With all her brains she was accepted into the University of Michigan where she graduated in 1939. After her school career, she started work as a teacher. Soon she was offered to work as an assistant at NASA. She was there to help the women’s colored section. She took the offer of her life to working at NASA. She had met her two friends, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughn. 

The three friends were able to work together in their dream workplace. Although it may not be what they had wished for, they were still proud and happy. Where she worked is where she built her reputation and fame in. At NASA she helped researchers calculate ways to get to the moon, orbit, and land safely. Her points were precise and more accurate than anyone could probably make them. Significant to her offer, she wasn’t the one in charge of their sector. Dorothy was. Dorothy was the one who told the girls what to do when it needed to be done, and how. She was the general in charge. Dorothy wasn’t the manager though; she was chosen to supervise while a new manager was searched for. Katherine was not known or provided a place for her amazing skills to be shown until Mary got an offer. Mary was offered to help with making and changing a shuttle that would be used. Mary had overheard supervisors talking about needing someone to check numbers and be correct. Automatically she had given the idea of her smartest friend, Katherine. 

The offer was brought to Johnson who obviously took it, there was no way she would’ve worked so hard since a child and not take the offer. There were many big changes in the atmosphere of where she worked. Her desk was put into a whole other building. With a whole change of color. Her atmosphere became ‘whitewashed’. Where she was now working was where all the higher noncolored people worked. There, there was so much colored segregation; from the coffee, she drank from to the bathroom she went to. Her workers were biased against her. The person who would give her work, Paul Stafford, would block out almost all the information she needed to check the numbers. He blocked them out because they were ‘classified information’. What made matter worse for her at that time was when she was pulled aside by her boss Al to talk about why his numbers aren’t there in front of him. She told him she would lift the papers, page by page, to see all the blocked numbers. Which would take her hours. Funny things happened after, they all thought she was a Russian spy, to which she retorted, do they really think a woman of color would be working for them. 

NASA had gotten a computer calculator that was gigantic! That was going to be used to produce numbers and let them get checked by the obvious, Katherine Johnson. Though, the workers who were premised to run the machine, couldn’t get it to work. Dorothy snuck into the building and started to get a lead on how the machine works. While all the girls were progressing in their NASA careers, Katherine was the only one getting treated the way she was. Al Harrison her boss almost fired her; she was walking and running in heels every day to go all the way to her coordinated restroom. She was having to drink from a different coffee machine, even with a different mug! This is what Harrison didn’t understand, his new star worker was being treated so differently that it affected her work time and efficiency. So, he decided to take things into his own hands. He went all the way to the west building, where the entire colored sector was, and he tore down all the colored signs. He ended the colored segregation there at NASA. This was a very important symbol to the entire colored community there, they found a new trust and respect for him in doing that one action. 

Katherine’s work was brought back up to speed, where she was calculating the numbers. It was soon time for her to help bring a man into space. With one issue, she wasn’t allowed in the meeting area since there was no Protocol for women. She couldn’t give the numbers nor was she able to hear the plan of something her work would be behind. Johnson wanted to show and work on more important numbers in front of the board. She wanted to prove she was what they needed. Through all her tough work she was able to get what she wanted. Not only that but it was insisted by the astronaut that her numbers were the only ones he would trust; he wanted her to check them before take-off. Katherine was very lucky in her NASA career. She was also lucky in her love life. Little before her career boost at NASA, she was at a picnic for her church. She saw someone who would change her life. 

Colonel James Johnson, also known as Jim. Her dearest friends pushed her into hanging out with this special man. Before meeting Jim, Katherine gave birth to three daughters: Joylette, Katherine, and Constance. Jim became loving of all four women. Their relationship didn’t start from a picnic though. It started from the stares and smiles turning into dances and dinners. Jim asked Katherine to marry him. Which turned into one of the happiest days of Katherine’s life. Throughout her career, she was known for being stubborn, impatient, and intolerant. These characteristics may have just been what made her career better. She was known for being the mathematician and scientist she is. The woman who made history for women in the scientific and mathematic fields as well as aeronautic history for NASA.