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Katherine Johnson Essay

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Genius, confident, and determined are three words that people think of in connection to Katherine Johnson. Many people know that Katherine Johnson was a mathematician, but she was so much more. As a black female mathematician, Katherine Johnson showed the world that women and African Americans were just as smart and capable as white men. She left a legacy as one of the most important people involved with the Space Race. But she wasn’t always trying to stand up for herself. When she was little, she was first being recognized with her talent towards math. The early life of Katherine Johnson was an active one. Katherine skipped various grades and went to high school when she was ten years old.(nasa.gov) But just to get to high school, her father and the rest of her family had to drive all the way to a …show more content…

For the launch of Alan Shepard, Katherine calculated the launch and landing of the Freedom 7. For the putting John Glenn into space, she calculated the trajectory for the launch. In fact, John Glenn did not fully trust the computers, which would glitch regularly, but told mission control to “get the girl to check the numbers” which meant he wanted Katherine to check the numbers for him before he got onto the shuttle, as part of a pre-flight checklist.
And, most notably of all, the moon landing. Katherine Johnson calculated the trajectory to put the first man on the moon. She also helped sync the Lunar Lander with the Lunar Orbiter so that the men did not get stuck on the moon. She was very important when it came to helping get those men back.
Katherine Johnson also had many jobs. She graduated college with a degree in Math and French, and then went on to teach Math and French at a black public school in Virginia. That was when she met her first husband, James Goble, and they got married. But because married women were not allowed as teachers, they kept their marriage a secret. But they did not have to much

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