{"id":52399,"date":"2017-03-13T01:30:53","date_gmt":"2017-03-13T01:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=52399"},"modified":"2017-04-19T16:52:57","modified_gmt":"2017-04-19T16:52:57","slug":"before-hidden-figures-there-was-a-rock-opera-about-nasas-human-computers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=52399","title":{"rendered":"Before \u201cHidden Figures,\u201d There Was a Rock Opera About NASA\u2019s Human Computers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.airspacemag.com\/daily-planet\/hidden-figures-there-was-rock-opera-about-nasas-human-computers-180961980\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>Before \u201cHidden Figures,\u201d There Was a Rock Opera About NASA\u2019s Human Computers<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.airspacemag.com\" target=\"_blank\">Air &amp; Space Magazine<\/a><br \/>\n2017-02-03<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lindabillings.org\/aboutdr.billings.html\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Linda Billings<\/strong><\/a>, Senior Editor<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/player.ooyala.com\/static\/v4\/stable\/4.5.7\/skin-plugin\/iframe.html?ec=k2aDViOTE68ljCrY_abYH1h_EbqoMyux&amp;pbid=ZmVkOTZlZDBiNzk1OWRkMDRjNmZjMzQ0&amp;pcode=ZnM2U6KMaWgHJof9G_au2_GdWAWT\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Katherine_Johnson\" target=\"_blank\">Katherine Johnson\u2019s<\/a> inspirational story came to the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Baltimore\" target=\"_blank\">Baltimore<\/a> stage in 2015, thanks to another space scientist.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hidden_Figures\" target=\"_blank\">Hidden Figures<\/a>,\u201d the story of three African-American women whose mathematical skill helped <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/NASA\" target=\"_blank\">NASA<\/a> launch astronauts into space and back in the early 1960s, has been both a critical and box office success. With more than $100 million in ticket sales and a stack of award nominations, the movie has inspired audiences with a true story made even more powerful by virtue of the fact that it was largely untold for 50 years. And still mostly unknown is the story of another NASA scientist who beat <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cinema_of_the_United_States\" target=\"_blank\">Hollywood<\/a> to the punch by putting \u201chuman computer\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Katherine_Johnson\" target=\"_blank\">Katherine Johnson\u2019s<\/a> saga on stage almost two years ago.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/science.gsfc.nasa.gov\/sed\/bio\/heather.v.graham\" target=\"_blank\">Heather Graham<\/a> is an <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Astrobiology\" target=\"_blank\">astrobiologist<\/a> at <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Goddard_Space_Flight_Center\" target=\"_blank\">NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center<\/a> outside <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Washington,_D.C.\" target=\"_blank\">Washington, D.C.<\/a> She\u2019s also a gamer, a feminist, and a member of the <a href=\"http:\/\/baltimorerockopera.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Baltimore Rock Opera Society<\/a>. In May 2015, the society staged Graham\u2019s one-act <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rock_opera\" target=\"_blank\">rock opera<\/a>, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/135613323\" target=\"_blank\">Determination of Azimuth<\/a>,\u201d which portrays how Johnson and her colleagues <a href=\"http:\/\/crgis.ndc.nasa.gov\/crgis\/images\/4\/4a\/MaryJackson.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Mary Jackson<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dorothy_Vaughan\" target=\"_blank\">Dorothy Vaughan<\/a>, were ignored and demeaned on the job at NASA\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Langley_Research_Center\" target=\"_blank\">Langley Research Center<\/a> in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Virginia\" target=\"_blank\">Virginia<\/a>, because they were black and female. The story has a happy ending: Their work was validated, their expertise accepted. But they had to endure racism and sexism along the way&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.airspacemag.com\/daily-planet\/hidden-figures-there-was-rock-opera-about-nasas-human-computers-180961980\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Katherine Johnson\u2019s inspirational story came to the Baltimore stage in 2015, thanks to another space scientist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,1245,459,8,20,25],"tags":[26440,26439,5973,26443,23839,26437,26442,26441,19571,26438,23838,5972,19572,19573],"class_list":["post-52399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-biography","category-history","category-media-archive","category-usa","category-women","tag-air-space","tag-air-space-magazine","tag-baltimore","tag-determination-of-azimuth","tag-dorothy-vaughan","tag-heather-graham","tag-heather-v-graham","tag-heather-valeah-graham","tag-katherine-johnson","tag-linda-billings","tag-mary-jackson","tag-maryland","tag-nasa","tag-national-aeronautics-and-space-administration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52399","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=52399"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52401,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52399\/revisions\/52401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}