{"id":48674,"date":"2016-08-16T00:21:53","date_gmt":"2016-08-16T00:21:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=48674"},"modified":"2016-08-16T00:21:53","modified_gmt":"2016-08-16T00:21:53","slug":"nasa-facility-dedicated-to-mathematician-katherine-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=48674","title":{"rendered":"NASA Facility Dedicated to Mathematician Katherine Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASA Facility Dedicated to Mathematician Katherine Johnson<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Space.com<\/a>
\n2016-05-05<\/p>\n

Sarah Lewin<\/strong><\/a>, Staff Writer<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\nKatherine Johnson<\/a>, pictured here at NASA’s<\/a> Langley Research Center<\/a>, where she worked as a “computer” and mathematician from 1953 to 1986. Langley dedicated a computing facility to Johnson in a ceremony today (May 5).
\nCredit: NASA<\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

NASA<\/a> honored 97-year-old mathematician Katherine Johnson<\/a> today (May 5) by dedicating a building in her name at the space agency’s Langley Research Center<\/a> in Hampton, Virginia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speakers at today’s ceremony included Virginia<\/a> congressmen and the mayor of Hampton, as well as former astronaut Leland Melvin<\/a>, who offered Johnson a Space Flight Awareness Silver Snoopy Award<\/a> that had been flown on the space shuttle Atlantis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The building’s dedication today was fitting; it occurred on the 55th anniversary of the first American spaceflight by astronaut Alan Shepard<\/a>, whose suborbital trajectory<\/a> Johnson calculated during her time working at Langley…<\/p>\n

…At Langley, Johnson performed calculations for airplane safety and rocket-launch experiments, starting in 1953 as part of a pool of female “computers”\u00a0and continuing until 1986. She worked by hand, and then with mechanical calculators \u2014 starting at the African-American-only West Area Computers<\/a> but moving after two weeks to Langley’s flight research division. Eventually, Johnson worked with electronic computers, whose work she checked before the calculations were used in John Glenn’s<\/a> groundbreaking orbit around the Earth<\/a>\u00a0in February 1962..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NASA Facility Dedicated to Mathematician Katherine Johnson Space.com 2016-05-05 Sarah Lewin, Staff Writer Katherine Johnson, pictured here at NASA’s Langley Research Center, where she worked as a “computer” and mathematician from 1953 to 1986. Langley dedicated a computing facility to Johnson in a ceremony today (May 5). Credit: NASA NASA honored 97-year-old mathematician Katherine Johnson […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,459,8,20,25],"tags":[24755,22016,19571,22027,19572,19573,24752,24753,24754],"class_list":["post-48674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-history","category-media-archive","category-usa","category-women","tag-alan-shepard","tag-katherine-g-johnson","tag-katherine-johnson","tag-langley-research-center","tag-nasa","tag-national-aeronautics-and-space-administration","tag-sarah-lewin","tag-space-com","tag-west-area-computers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48674"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48675,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48674\/revisions\/48675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}