Nasa facility honors African American woman who plotted key space missions
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Source: The Guardian
Katherine Johnson, the mathematician whose calculations influenced some of the most important missions of the space age, on Friday helped Nasa open a new research and development facility that bears her name.
The 99-year-old cut the ribbon for the Katherine G Johnson Computational Research Facility at the Langley research center in Hampton, Virginia, where she was honored as a trailblazing human computer.
In a pre-taped video message, Johnson laughed when asked how she felt about a building being named in her honor.
You want my honest answer? I think theyre crazy, she said. I was excited at something new, always liked something new, but give credit to everybody who helped. I didnt do anything alone but try to go to the root of the question and succeeded there.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/sep/22/hidden-figures-mathematician-katherine-johnson-nasa-facility-open
From her Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Johnson
Johnson co-authored 26 scientific papers.
President Barack Obama presented Johnson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of 17 Americans so honored on November 24, 2015. She was cited as a pioneering example of African-American women in STEM.
In 2016, Johnson was included in the list of "100 Women", BBC's list of 100 influential women worldwide.[40] NASA stated, "Her calculations proved as critical to the success of the Apollo Moon landing program and the start of the Space Shuttle program, as they did to those first steps on the country's journey into space."
= new reply since forum marked as read
And John Glenn, said I want Katherine Johnson to tell me if it is go or no go for launch..............
1) I am in FL and while power is back getting back to normal tends to take a bit.
2) While I saw the title come up, I didn't make the connection.
But now I will seek it out. This makes me happy. 
I love to read the books too. Reading before seeing or the other way around, usually doesn't matter for me. So far only Game of Thrones is something where it helps to read the books first. Many moving parts. I did read the books before viewing on that one.
One movie I recently saw on Epix, was Fences. Wow! That was a great movie.
She should be a source of inspiration for all Americans, but especially for our youth.
Excellent page on Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Johnson
(snip)
Johnson graduated from high school at 14 and entered West Virginia State College (now West Virginia State University), a historically black college. As a student, she took every math course offered by the college. Multiple professors took her under their wings, including chemist and mathematician Angie Turner King, who had mentored the girl throughout high school, and W.W. Schiefflin Claytor, the third African American to receive a PhD in math. Claytor added new math courses just for Katherine. She graduated summa cum laude in 1937, with degrees in Mathematics and French, at age 18.
