Katherine Johnson: Nasa mathematician who was crucial to the space race

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. A maths prodigy from West Virginia who said she “counted everything” as a child – “the steps to the road, the steps up to church, the number of dishes and silverware I washed” – Johnson worked as a schoolteacher before being hired as a computer at Naca’s flight research division, based at Langley Research Centre in Hampton, Virginia. Space ace: Johnson receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama at the White House in 2015 Johnson and dozens of colleagues wrote a 600-page technical report titled Notes on Space Technology, outlining the mathematical underpinnings of spaceflight, from rocket propulsion to orbital mechanics and heat protection. In a subsequent report, Johnson took her calculations one step further, working with several colleagues to determine how a spacecraft could move in and out of a planetary body’s orbit. Three years later she was one of three black students selected to integrate West Virginia University’s graduate programmes.