Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / 181. Katherine Johnson - NASA's Human Computer

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181. Katherine Johnson - NASA's Human Computer · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Hello, delicious friends, and welcome to Who Did What Now?
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: The history podcast that is Not Your History Class with
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: me and your host Katie Charlwood, History Harlotte and reader
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: of books. So here's the thing. Complain some of my videos,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: aren't you, like they have and all the time, whether
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: you've got ten followers or one hundred thousand followers or whatever. Right,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: And I get complaints and people have issues all the time,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: and some of them fair enough, others a bit weird. Right,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: And I've noticed the same issue crop up a couple
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: of times, like over the last months specifically, which is weird.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know why so many people would have an
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: issue regarding black history during Black History Month, now, apart
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: from the fact that some people can't grasp that specific concept,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: which I feel like, out of everything is the easiest
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: part out of this. No, what the issue seems to
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: be quite a lot recently. The complaint that people are
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: making is that in my videos, I'm talking about the
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: past events and people that have happened many years away
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: from now, like back the way right. No, I don't
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: like to call people stupid, you know, because I think
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: it's a wee bit redundant.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: However, I do wonder, like, how smooth does your brain
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: have to be for you to be upset that a
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: historian is talking about the past. What part of a
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: history discussing history? Like does it make sense to you?
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: Like?
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  Speaker 1: Where? Where does that compute? Like? I don't, I don't
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: get anyway, Anyway, I thought i'd share that with you.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: But anyway, that's not the point. Let's talk about someone
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Ah may Zing today. Listen, did you really think I
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: was going to go through a Black History Month without
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: talking about amazing women as if? Okay? And of course
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Katie, quite your
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: gibbl jab of in fact me, in fact you I will.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: But first we've got to get our source on. Our
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: sources are black women scientists in the United States by
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Winnie Warren, Human Computers, the Women in Aeronautical research by
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Beverly Glemba, Catherine Johnson by Shirley Malcolm Catherine Johnson, The
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Girl who Loved to Count by Avette Smith, the women
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: the Mercury Astronauts Couldn't Do Without by Margot Lee Shutterley,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: And of course, of course Hidden Figures, the American Dream,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: and the untold story of the Black women mathematicians who
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: helped win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly, My
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Remarkable Journey by Catherine Johnson, and of course we have
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: our old favorites Smithsonian dot com Andhistory dot com. As
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: it in comfortably gold Lyndley, It's begin. Some of you
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: may have seen the inspired by a True Story twenty
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: sixteen movie Hidden Figgures, like this is what Cold War era,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: specifically the Space Race, where the USA and the USSR
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: were competing to be the first to get a man
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: into space, onto the mountain, so on and so forth.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Hidden Figures focused primarily on three black women from the
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  Speaker 1: NASA program that successfully launched John Glenn into orbit and
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: brought him back home again. Now it is a wee
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: bit white savory, but other than that, the performances are stellar.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Like it's a good movie, I mean from my very
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: wide perspective. So these three amazing women are Dorothy Vaughan,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Mary Jackson, and of course Katherine Johnson. And I'm going
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: to focus on Katherine Johnson today. Now I am going
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: to go back and talk about the other two at
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: some point, but today we are going to celebrate Katherine Johnson.
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  Speaker 1: Creola Katherine Coleman was born on the twenty sixth of
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: August nineteen eighteen in White Silver Springs, West Virginia. She
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: was the youngest of four children to joy Let ROBERTA. Lowe,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: who was a teacher, and Joshua McKinley Coleman, a handyman,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: a farmer, a lumberjack, and later he would work at
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: the Greenbrier Hotel. According to the nineteen ten census, Joshua
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: owned the farm he worked on, as opposed to being
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: like a sharecropper, which effectively is tenant farming and is
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: so yeah, sharecropping is basically being a tenant farmer where
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: you would grow a certain amount of crops, you would
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: give a lot of these crops to the landowner and
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: you would make like a teeny any bit of money
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: off it. And you couldn't save any of the seeds.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: You couldn't do anything like that. And it was basically
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: a way to kind of keep you sort of indentured,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Anyway, he was not a sharecropper,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: according to the census. Catherine had three older siblings, Horace,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Margaret and Charles plays can we bring back the name Horace?
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: It's just all names are fun. Let's bring them back. Horace, Cheltenham, Primrose.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: These are all good. They're good names. I'll good. Fuck,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: they're good names. Now, it can be easy to dismiss
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: someone with a sort of blue collar job, you know,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: a farmer, a plumber, or whatever, and assume that because
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: their jobs are physical, because it's manual labor, that they
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: lack mental acuity. However, Catherine's father, Joshua, had a mind
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: for mathematics, something that Catherine seemed to have an inherent
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: talent for. Sidebar. Yes, we're already on a sidebar. So
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: my papa, so my maternal grandfather. He left at fourteen,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: He left the car try. He went and started working
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Like he worked in coal mines, he worked in irrigation,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: so like he literally was the person who laid pipe,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: and so at one point he was working for like
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: gas lines, for gas piping. And he had made his
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: way up like the council. Like he'd made his way up,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: you know, he worked his way up effectively, and he
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: always did physically demanding jobs his entire life. But that
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: man's mental arithmetic. I have never met anybody before or
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: since who was that quick. And not only that, he
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: wasn't just like quick with maths. He was quick witted
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  Speaker 1: and clever and witty and dear God, what I would
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: give to be that sort of quick and intelligent and funny.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Like it's just oh anyway, he was amazing and one
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: of the most compassionate men like ever, And that's why
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: I have fucking standards, you know, That's what I was
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  Speaker 1: raised with. And he was the only who never made
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: fun of me for struggling to eat certain foods. So yep, oh,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: so we couldn't blame him for the reason that I
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: love potatoes because he used to just give me a
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: big bowl of mash with ridiculous amounts of butter, so
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: we can blame him for that. So back to Catherine.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: As a toddler, she took to numbers, counting everything she
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: came across, plates, cups, stars in the sky, everything, And
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: like with three older siblings, you know, they're practicing their
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: mathematics homework and things like that, so it's not surprising
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: that as a child like she would practice with them,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: like she would pay attention, she would take it on board,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: so she already had a better baseline for going in
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  Speaker 1: to apply this sort of natural talent too, and being
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: the era that it was, the education system, well it
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: was segregated like everything else, and Greenbrier County it did
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: not have public schooling for African American students beyond eighth grade.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: So that's like thirteen fourteen, isn't it? It is? It is.
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  Speaker 1: So Catherine she excelled in school, like she was tip
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: top on all of us subjects, but she really really
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: excelled in maths, in mathematics. So the commons, they are
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: arranged for their children to attend like the common children.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: They were attending a school on the campus at the
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: West Virginia State Institute, which is like justin said Charleston.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: So the West Virginia State Institute was an all black college,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: of which they were very few in the region, especially
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: on the East coast. So yeah, there was a school
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: on the campus of the WVSC and the children were
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: at the institute like during the school year and then
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: and they went back to White Silver Springs during the summer.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: So Catherine she goes through all this and she graduates
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: high school at fourteen. Then she attends the WSVC where
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: she takes every single maths course that is available, like
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: they actually added courses just for her, including analytic geometry
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: in space. Yeah, so she's got like calculus geometry, the
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: other ones the geometry and space long division al chubra.
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  Speaker 1: I don't I'm not a mathematician. I would never claim
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: to be. Maths is not my strong suit under any circumstances.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: I'm really good at counting money though for some reason,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: you put coins in front of me, and I'm like,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: I'm like one of those machines. I'm like good that
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: can't do anything else. So I would say, but if
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: there's a radical application, I might be fine. Otherwise no.
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  Speaker 3: So, so she's doing this right, and she is excelling unsurprisingly,
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  Speaker 3: like passing every single one of these courses with bells on.
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  Speaker 1: So she actually joins like a sorority when she's going
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: through college as well, and so she just has like
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: a really good educational experience. And she graduated Summa come
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  Speaker 1: laud in nineteen thirty seven at the age of eighteen
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  Speaker 1: with degrees in mathematics and French babe, and so she
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  Speaker 1: was ready to make her way in the world. Everybody
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  Speaker 1: encouraged her to pursue a career in teaching, even though
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: she was a black woman in the South wait, it
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: is the South. Let me check, yes, the southern United States.
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  Speaker 1: Virginia and West Virginia are both in that. So okay,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: geography is also not my strong suit. You're thinking, Katie,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: how did you pass school? I was like, ah, with
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  Speaker 1: great determination. So she is facing discrimination, right, very open
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  Speaker 1: discrimination from supervisors and principles, because not only is she
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: in the South, but you're still, you know, in the
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: midst like you're coming near the end of it, but
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: you're still in the Great Depression. You know, it's not
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  Speaker 1: easy for anybody, let alone a black woman in the South.
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  Speaker 1: So she goes to the Marion Wiffe County in Virginia,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: where she got a job at Carnegy High School, teaching
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  Speaker 1: maths and French we wee. While in Marion, Catherine met
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: James Francis Goebel and they fell in love and secretly
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  Speaker 1: got married. Now this may shock you, but the law
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  Speaker 1: wasn't just racist, it was sexist as well, racism and misogyny.
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  Speaker 1: His friends who knew see Virginia law and US law
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  Speaker 1: prohibited married women from having teaching careers because of course,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: you can have many flavors of discrimination. Granted, this law
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: would be overturned in nineteen sixty four, which is well
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: over twenty five years later, but it does get overturned,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: so Catherine ends up leaving teaching anyway to go to
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  Speaker 1: graduate school. Catherine was the first African American women to
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: attend graduate school at the previously all white West Virginia
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  Speaker 1: University in Morgantown, West Virginia. Basically, there was a Supreme
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Court ruling in nineteen thirty eight Missouri x ral Gains
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: VG Canada that required states to provide higher education to
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: black students if it was already providing it to white students.
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  Speaker 1: This meant that universities would either have to integrate or
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: the states would have to establish black colleges or universities.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: So they had two choices. They either integrate or they
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: build more like specifically for black people. But unfortunately when
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: more are built, they just put less funding into it.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: You know, they deliberately try prevent them from succeeding. Catherine
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: was one of only three African American students to attend
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: the university, and she was also the only black women
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: to attend. Now, she only stays they were here now
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: in all defense, she discovers that she's pregnant and so
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: She leaves at the end of the summer session and
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: for a while was a full time wife and mother.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: She and James go on to have three children together.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Joilette Is born in nineteen forty, Constance in nineteen forty three,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: and then Catherine in nineteen forty four. So this was
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: a household. Like James, he was also like a science student.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: That's how they met. So they're both educated. They both
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: love the sciences. They both love maths, and Catherine loves
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: maths more than he does. But that's neither here nor there.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: But they're they're happy together. But the house isn't like
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: strictly an academic house. Like they love music. It's a
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: very musical household. Like they play instruments. You've got like
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: the violin, the cello, the piano and the organ. Like
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: it's you know, there's music, there's joy, and you know,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: for the time that's in it, it's you know, quite
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: a happy household. Now, for those of you who are
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: good with dates, you may have clocked that this period
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: of time is during World War Two. Cloffingut version Germany
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: invaded Poland in nineteen thirty nine, setting off a gain
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: reaction of alliances and attacks. Right, So you've got the
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Axis powers versus the Allies. So you've got Germany, Italy,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: other ones, and then you've got the Allies which is US, UK,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: France and Russia eventually because like takes away while to
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: actually join the fight. But that's nearly here, not there.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: Another group involved in this are Japan. So Japan, historically
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: a country known to strike first and strike harshly, had
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: attacked Pearl Harbor in nineteen forty one, and so that
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: was really when the US like pumped up the gals
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: and really jumped into the war. So large scale events
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: like wars, although absolutely horrible and you know, devastating, they
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: breed necessity. Right. So the First World War had led
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: to a great leap forward in women's suffrage, so for
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: some women, not all women, let's just make that clear,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: but it was still like a big step in the
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: right direction. The Second World War was seen as an
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: opportunity to make life better for black citizens in the USA. Right,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: So you've got these leaps like if everyone's involved, you're
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: showing your patriotism, you're helping your country succeed, then you
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: should be rewarded for that. So this would all in
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: all make an opportunity for Catherine, an opportunity for her
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: to have a career as a professional mathematician. So Catherine
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: had returned to teaching in nineteen forty four, teaching mathematics
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: at a black school in Morgantown, West Virginia. So she
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: had been teaching there for about eight years when her
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: husband James's brother in law, so her sister in law's husband,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: he approaches her at a wedding to inform her that
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: the government was hiring black women to work as mathematicians
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in Hampton, Virginia. So,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: the National Advisory Committee of Aeronautics NAKA, the precursor to NASA,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: We're hiring both black and white mathematicians for their guidance
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: and navigational department. Like that's what they were hiring for.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: And so this man in law, he knew that Catherine
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: had studied and was teaching maths, and he also knew
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Dorothy Vaughn. So Dorothy, she had a good few women
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: working for her at the West Area Computing Section at NAKA.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: She and her family lived in Newcomb Park, and this
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: dude was the director of the Newcomb Park Community Center. Now,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: this work opportunity, it was a no bruiner, right, So
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: for Catherine, she loved teaching. But this may shock you,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: but an African American teacher's salary in the nineteen fifties
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: wasn't exactly breaking the bank. Katherin and James, they were
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: struggling to stay afloat with both of their paychecks, and
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: so they take this opportunity. They moved to Newport News
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: and joined the community in Newcombe Park and Catherine applies
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: for the job at NAKA. Now seems like a good
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: time to slip into some context. NAKA, the National Advisory
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Committee of Aeronautics, was a federal agency launched in nineteen
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: seventeen in response to the US's lack of warplanes to
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: support the Allied forces and then later on the American
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Expeditionary Force the EH. Initially, it's a small division sharing
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: a campus with the US Army Air Corps in Hampton, Virginia.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: The purpose of NACA was to study the science of
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: flying and help develop the most powerful and efficient planes
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: in the nation. Now, remember this point, planes actually haven't
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: been around this long. Like the Right Brothers' first like
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: proper flight was nineteen oh three. Right, you're talking what
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: fifty years, which isn't huge, right, I mean this is
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: established what in nineteen seventeen. The right brothers are nineteen
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: oh three, so you're talking fourteen years and they're like,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: we need a lot of bad planes, and it's like, yeah, bitch,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: you do. So before military planes were commissioned, federal designs
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: and companies who wanted to mass produce right before that,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: it all had to go through NAKA for approval by
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: teams of aerial specialists. So like they create like wind
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: tunnels to simulate different flying conditions, which you know is
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: like super handy and testing not just the aircraft as
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: a whole, but you know the parts. So like if
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: something was going wrong somewhere, they were like, oh, we
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: need to fix the left flangaye or whatever. So they
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: were taken to count wing geometry, air disturbance, etc. So
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: you had all these different professionals, all cogs in this
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: machine to make it work. Engineers, mechanics, physicists, and the
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: most important group, well the most vital group, mathematicians otherwise
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: known as computers. So raw data would be collected about
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: you know, the planes, what they were doing the winds
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: made yeria. Yea, all this stuff, all this raw data
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: is taken together and the mathematicians their computations turned it
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: into readable data for engineers to evaluate because no one
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: of the numbers is fine, but you need to know
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: what the numbers mean. So up until nineteen thirty five,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: the math involved in aerial signs was only done by
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: male computers. Right then they started hiring women. As it
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: turns out, in a crazy random happenstance, female computers were
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: just as good, if not better than their male counterparts
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: in mathematical calculations. Unsurprisingly, when men went off in massive
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: numbers to fight in World War Two, nearly all of
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: the computers left were women. Even More unsurprisingly, these women
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: were classified as sub professionals. Sub professionals basically this ensured
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: that they were paid less and were often left out
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: of the history of the progress of aerial science. How convenient.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: It was beyond rare for a woman to be granted
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: the title of mathematician. And they would have to really
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: and I would really knock it out the park. They
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: would have to excel and surpass male counterparts. They had
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: to be the best around. Nothing you can say can
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: take them down, you're gonna be the best of it, okay,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: and Catherine turned out to be one of them. So like,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: here's the thing. It's like the whole thing about man
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: of science, right, so the word scientist exists because of
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: a woman. Okay. So the thing about the world scientist
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: is that the term used to be like a man
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: of science, used to be man of science. But so
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: it was like natural philosopher was a term for a
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: while because they needed a term that if someone was
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: a scientist and they had like many disciplines. So if
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: you were like a chemist and a biologist and whatever,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: you know, typically if you were a man, you would
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: be a man of science, but if you were a woman,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: there was no word for you, and so like a
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: gender neutral term had to be made, and so scientists
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: ended up coming from that. So yeah, that's how things
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: happen in the world. And so yeah, Catherine becomes a
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: mathematician officially. So NAKA had been growing rapidly, like by
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: the outbreak of the Second World War, so not just
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: like in size, but in the quality of what it
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: was doing. So some of the most powerful war play
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: had been produced thanks to their data output, test results
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: and recommendations. So you had planes like the Corsair, the
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Douglas SBD Dauntless, the B twenty four Liberator. I have
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: heard lots about B twenty fours. I've also had a
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: lot about B seventeen's right, So you've got the German
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Hellcat and the Boeing B seventeen Flying Fortress because they
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: all have to have names. Listen, no, no, sheme, no, sheme.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Like we once had a vote in our country to
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: name a boat and we called it boty make boat face.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Like you don't want to you don't want to do that.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: You don't want to give people power because we will
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: be ridiculous. So, yeah, flying Fortress isn't actually that bad
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: in comparison. I mean, the Liberator does seem to make
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: sense in context. But like the Corsair, you named it
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: the Corse, like after Pirates that you thought that. No,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna get into it. We don't need to
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: have this argument right now. So in the nineteen forties,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: NAKA was the Creme de la creme of aerial science,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: and it was on top of the world, you know,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: because like post war was great, it was really booming.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: It had done all this amazing stuff, had all these
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: amazing planes, all this great data, and then oh no,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: oh no, the Cold War happened right and then you know,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: it's bubble was busted on the fourth of October nineteen
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: fifty seven, when the USSR or the Soviet Union, launched
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Sputnik one into outer space. Sputnik one was the first
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: artificial manual satellite to be launched into out of space.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: The Cold War space race had BEGUNSR peled on the
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: pressure like it piled on when nearly a month later
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: they launched a dog into space on Sputnik two. Her
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: name was Leka, and she was a very good girl.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: So Leka actually means like barker, like like that's where
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: the name came from. And she was sent into space. Leka,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: the Soviet space dog, was the first living creature to
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: go to space and orbit the Earth. Well, orbit the
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Earth is generous because Sputnik two it orbited the Earth
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: for one hundred and sixty two days before burning up
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: on the fourteenth of April nineteen fifty eight. Now, Leka,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: she passed away within hours of the launch due to overheating,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: not seven days as is often claikeed. Oh, she survived
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: seven days in space all alone. No, no, a couple
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: hours and she was gone the bastels anyway. Obviously this
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: wouldn't do. The camis winning the space race. Hell no, heck, now,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know what's the heck would be nineteen forties. Yeah,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: let's let's go with that. So everyone was chomping at
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: the bit to be the agency to take on the
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: newly planned space program. You've got like the US Naval
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Research Observatory, the US Air Force, and even the Army
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Ballistics Missile Agency. But NAKA was the one selected to
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: become the new center of the space program. And so
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty eight, NAKA becomes NASA, the National Aeronautics
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: and Space Administration. This program shifted from airplane research and
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: design to developing spacecrafts and partially for the advancement of
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: mankind and partially to rub the USL's face in it
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: back in the US. This up I regret nothing back
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: to Catherine, So she and her family they upsticks and
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: they moved to Newport News, and she applies for a
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: job at NAKA and gets accepted in nineteen fifty two,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: so she gets the job, but she doesn't actually start
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: till like the summer, so she's got a bit of downtime.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: So Catherine starts working with Dorothy Vaughn, eight years her senior,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: and what do you know, in a weirdly like crazy
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: random happenstance, turns out their families had been neighbors like
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: for a short time. So I think it was back
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: when Dorothy was about nine ten years old. And what
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: was it she would have been Katherine would have been
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: like one two, you know when about that. So Dorothy
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: specialized in management and so would assigned jobs to all
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: of the women in her division. So that's in the
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: West Area computing. And two weeks after Catherine started, she
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: and another computer Armah, were sent to the Flight Research Division,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: a group that specialized in testing real plans rather than
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: you know, in wind tunnels, and she was sent there.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: So she and Armah there are black women working with
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of white male engineers. And this is
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: an era when black people are still fighting for their
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: civil rights. Right, regardless of how you know, brilliant minded
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: or whatever these guys are, there's always going to be
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: racial undertones, especially when your society has segregation as the
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: norm and has treated an entire way of people as
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: less than there's going to be underlying like racism and
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: bias there. So initially there's a lack of respect for
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: these women. That it is until these wet mill engineers
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: realized just how vital they were. So Catherine's higher level
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: maths was so on point that it just had to
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: be acknowledged, Like you just had to accept that she
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: was brilliant, you know, And six months in, right, she's
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: still there. She's still a temp technically, six months in
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: and so the head of her division told the head
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: of the flight research division to either give Catherine a
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: raise or to send her back to them. But obviously
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: she's brilliant, she's amazing, she's ten out of ten. They
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: don't want to send her back. You don't want to
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: do that, absolutely not. Catherine not only gets a raise,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: but she's also made a full time mathematis like it's
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: not just the maths, right, it's the practical application of
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: the maths, Like, not not just the numbers, but what
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: the numbers are used for. And a lot of her
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: division is doing is safety, like safety concerns and investigating
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: plane crashes, which is just I'm sorry, that's fascinating to me.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: So there's an investigation into a Piper plane that had crashed,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: and so she investigates like she's part of the investigative team,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: and she discovers that the air disturbance is caused by
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: a jet that had passed through the airspace earlier and
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: that was the cause of the crash. And this led
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: to changes in air traffic regulations, which we still use today,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: right or not we but you I mean American airspace
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: well who knows now, but you did up until very
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: very recently. And that's all I'm going to say on that,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: mad So this is all fine and well, but by
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: the mid fifties, the space race is a cause for
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: concern for the USA. And on top of this, Catherine's
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: home life takes a tongue, So we're gonna skip back
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: and skip forward with it. So they've been residing in
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: Newcomb Park for two years and James wanted to move
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: to like a more like upscale neighborhood, and so they do,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: that's what they do, and they're starting to reap what
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: they saw as they're moving into like a little bit
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: more prominent area, you know, better funding, better housing, yahiyaha.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: And so the following year, like they were there for
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: a year, and then suddenly James just starts feeling unwell.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: He's weak, he's in pain. There's just a lot going on,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: and he's got all of these symptoms that don't seem
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: to match up. It was then discovered that James had
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: an inoperable brain tumor, and he passes away a few
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: days before Christmas in nineteen fifty six, after twenty three
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: months of constant pain and severe illness. So like in
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: over the course of just until two years, she just
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: gets weaker and more frail, and it just goes on
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: until he dies. And Catherine she's lost her husband and
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: the father of her children. And unfortunately for her, she's
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: the breadwinner. Now, you know, food still has to get
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: on the table, and the bills still have to be paid.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: And so after a very short period of mourning, she
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: goes back to work. Now her mother joy let, she
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: moves back in to help take care of her granddaughters.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: And Catherine she's back at Naka in January of nineteen
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: fifty seven, and she's getting back into the swing of things,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: you know, back hitting the ground running. And then nineteen
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: fifty eight she has another hurdle to jump over, all
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: thanks to the National Aeronautics and Space Act. So when
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: NAKA becomes NASA. When it was still NAKA, Catherine had
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: been in the West Computing wing. But now that NASA
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: was formed, this was being disbanded, right, even like East
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: Computing were being moved into different groups. Now, on one hand,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: that's good because it's the end of segregation at Langley.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: On the other hand, it's not good because Catherine was
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: no longer a designated computer with West Computing and Dorothy Well.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: She had spent years building up West Computing and was
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: now left with a handful of black computers under a
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: new boss in a different division. So everything she had built,
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: everything she'd proven, like her group of women to be,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: was just spu up, gone who whatever. But did they
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: give up? No, they said fuck this for a game
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: of soldiers, and they got going. While they going was hot.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: So NASA's first few months into like its creation, was
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: full of new data analyzing, testing different wind tunnels, and
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: revising books that tailored to studying space aviation. Right, this
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: is all like their past fiction and they're now in reality.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: So Catherine, again, nobody should be shocked by this, but
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: she is a very quick learner and super good at multitasking,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: and so she just starts studying everything she can related
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: to space research and travel. So she's listening to aerial
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: discussions with the engineers, she's studying old charts on wind
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: tunnel data, and she's reading all this different literature about flight.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: And so she's like absorbing and consuming all of this information. Again,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: it's not just the numbers, it's the practical application of
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: the numbers. But where her like next hurdle is this
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: one is on fire apparently, like she has to try
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: and understand the new mission because getting into lectures and
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: to get into all of these meetings, like it's a
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: closed room, you know, and only a select viewer come in,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: and like she's constantly turned down, Like she badges them, right,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: she consistently badges them, and it's always like girls don't
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: go to meetings, girls don't go to meetings, which okay,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: I'm not actually a rule, You've just made that up.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: And eventually like she wears them down because there's no actual,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: written down, official legal rule that stopped women going to meetings.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: And so she just chipped away until like she was
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: able to get in because she's like, oh, I'm sorry,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: what is this a new flavor of discrimination. We'll have
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: tasted that before, sir, and I'm coming in. By the
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: time she actually gets into the meetings, and then she
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: just shows off just how fucking brilliant she is. Like
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: all all of the men in the room are like,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, what, Like they were amazed, they were standard
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: and they're like, crap, She's really good and they're eating
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: their words. And so over the next three years, from
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine to ninety sixty one, she is just
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: powering through. Like there's a lot of high tension, there's
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: accelerated work, and after successfully launching their own satellite Explorer
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: one at the end of nineteen fifty eight, NASA was
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: just really knows to the groundstone working on their next plan.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: The one thing they wanted to really beat the Soviet
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: Union at, and that was putting a man in space
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: and surviving. They want him to go into space and
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: also live through the process, Like that's the goal, you know.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Now her personal life is also taking a turn here too,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: because she meets in Mary's James Johnson, or like Jim Johnson,
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: who was a veteran of the Korean War and a
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: US Army officer, so they get married. He becomes a stepdad.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: Super Okay, back to her math life. So they are
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: just constantly turning out numbers. They're trying to make this work,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: and then the USSR just sticks their run. In September,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: they launch another one of their own satellites, Lunar II,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: and soon it was the very first to reach the
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Moon before it crashed onto its surface. Naturally, the USA
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: is pissed because they have had a satellite reach the Moon.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: This is bullshit. They need to beat this, and so
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: they began NASA's first official human space program, Project Mercury.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: The projectors made up of seven astronauts, some of whom
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: would go on to become quite famous right and become
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: part of later projects too. So you had Scott Carpenter,
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Virgil Grisham, Walter Surer, Donald Slayton,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: and Alan Shepherd. Unlike the Soviet Union, NASA took a
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: long time a lo listen. It was more systematic and reliable, right,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: So they wanted to do this to get into space,
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: they wanted to actually make sure it was safe and
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: not just fast. So a spacecraft model was carefully designed
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: and created well. Another group calculated the trajectories of the
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: spacecraft leaving, orbiting and re entering the Earth. Because again,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: send man to space, bring man home. Okay, full circle,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: not just send a don to space to die individual TBIA.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah you heard me. So Catherine is part of the
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: group which is calculating the trajectories of the spacecraft right,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: and her first mission calculations would effectively bring her one
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: step closer to making history. The trajectory analyst for Alan
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: Shepherd's mission, she and Ted Skopinski co authored Determination of
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: Asamouth Angle had burned Out for placing a satellite over
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: a selected Earth position, basically a report laying out the
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: equations describing an orbital spaceflight in which the landing position
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: of the spacecraft was specified. What made this mission crucial
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: was that Alan Shepherd was selected to attempt orbiting the Earth,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: and that being the first official man mission for the USA,
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: all eyes across the world were fixed on the country
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: and NASA. Catherine was well aware that it wasn't just
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: the astronauts' lives that were on the line, but the
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: United States integrity and so she was I mean, I'm
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: gonna stay fastidious. She was pedantic, she was meticulous. Right,
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: She took extreme precaution and diligently did all the calculations
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: or all of her calculations for the trajectory and the reentry,
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: double checking everything she and her branch would get the
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: spacecraft size, shape dimensions, along with like the atmosphere qualities
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: of the Earth, the projected speed of the spacecraft, and
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: pressure readings right, and so, as he prepared to embark
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: on his space travel on Freedom seven, Alan Shepard, Catherine
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: spent hours calculating data, analysis and developing a report, even
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: staying late to ensure that she finalized the mathematical equations.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: So Will's Project Mercury was underway. Like things intensified, Things
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: intensified between the USSR and the USA because on April twelfth,
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one, Yurigagarin became the first maneuver to enter space,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: as he and the Vostok I spent almost two hours
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: in Earth's orbit. Right, so he goes up and on
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: the fifth of May, after delay after delay, and this
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: being postponed and whatnot, the United States finally launched Alan
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: Shepherd in Freedom seven off of Cape Canaveral, Florida for
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: America's very first taste in human spaceflight. So this was
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: a suborbital flight, right, it lasted fifteen minutes, and NASA
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: succeeded in the fact that Alan had some control over
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: the Freedom seven spacecraft, right, so Volstok one it was automatic,
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: right like eury Gagarin had no control over it. So
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: on the twenty first of July, Virgil Grisham and Liberty
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: Bell seven was launched and performed another fifteen minutes of
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: suborbital flight. But this ended with the sinking of the spacecraft. Like,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: so Liberty Bell seven sinks just after Grisham's recovery. So
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: this just gets like tit for tapped. So in August,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: the USSR retaliates with GYM and teped off going to
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: a day long orbital flight in the Vostok to spacecraft.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: And so this is just lighting a fire under the
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: US right, and they're just getting madder and angrier, and
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: so they're putting more pressure on NASA to get things
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: like changed up. They want to like boost it because
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: they want to catch up to the USSR. So like
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: if yours earlier, are you earlier? Nineteen sixty NASA was
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: like about getting upgrade, so they were going to get
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: the first mechanized calculation machines IBM. It's IBM. Does IBM
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: still make things now? Anyway? So this machine not only
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: calculated to trajectories mechanically, but communicated the data between Langley
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: and Cape Canaveral, where the men Care rocket was going
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: to be launched. Now this was a problem for Catherine
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: and a whole host of other people. So just as
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: the first missions were commencing, which again almost threatened her
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: role in the entire project, the early ibms weren't really
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: up to snuff, right, So so NASA had acquired the
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: first IBM computer, which again was programmed to calculate the trajectory,
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: but the manufactured computers were making mistakes. Now the machine
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: was doing most of the computations of NASA, but because
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: it was doing that computers, the human computers were not
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: needed as much. However, the astronauts were hesitant, as one
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: would be, in putting their lives into the hands of
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: mechanical machines. The astronauts didn't trust the machines. We shouldn't
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: trust skynet. I'm just I'm just putting it out there.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: So by the request of the higher ups, Dorothy and
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: her remaining West Computing, right, they were called up along
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: with whatever was left of East Computing to assist the machine.
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: So they were basically acting as math programmers so that
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: they could make the machines work better. They needed the
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: human element, and so the new Analyze Analysis and Computation
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: Division ACAD which then with male computers. Right, Dorothy, she
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: ends up specializing in programming on top of her supervising, right,
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: and she ends up getting a position as an expert
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: fortune programmer. If he was making sure that she was
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: needed and fucking good for her. So John Glenn, right,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: Alan Shepherd's mission had gone well, but in nineteen sixty two,
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: John Glenn like, he's like, let's be extra careful. So
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: he's taking every precaution, like he is like double wrapping,
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, He's being super careful, and
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: he wanted to ensure that he was going to be
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: okay and wouldn't die, you know, upon re entry and
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: also wouldn't you know, land in Soviet waters. Right, So
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: he had heard about Katherine Johnson although her name she
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: literally Johnson since what fifty eight because yes, so she'd
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: been Katherine Goebel because obviously she'd married James Goebel, and
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: then when she meets jem like at NASA, so they
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: end up dating for three years before she finally accepts
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: his marriage proposal. And because she gets married, her name
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: is now Catherine Johnson and that's what she's known as
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: like for the rest of her life. So as Katherine
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: Johnson right, Glenn literally asked the engineers right to get
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: the girl Johnson to run the same like equations that
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: have been programmed in the computer, but by hand right right,
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: so basically mechanically calculating. So basically like he goes, if
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: she's good, then he's ready to go.
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: So he's just like, no, no, make sure she checks
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: all the gagulations because like, make sure she double checks
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: it and maketure's the machines right, which I just love.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: Is like no, no, the girl, trust the girl. So
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: he actually had refused to enter his spacecraft until the
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: numbers match the ones that Katherine had given, like until
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: they were the same, he was like, not a chance.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: So on the morning of the twentieth of February nineteen
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: sixty two, John Glenn took off in Friendship seven and
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: achieved not only one, not two, but three orbits around
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: the Earth in a span of four hours and fifty
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: five minutes. So he had to manually pilot Friendship seven
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: when it came to reentry because the heat shield had
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: like a couple of like reissues when re entering. But
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: he was in the spacecraft the entire time, unlike the
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Volstock space program where the cosmonauts, so in America they
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: had astronauts and the us ZIZA had cosmo lauts. So
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: the USSR's cosmonauts had to eject with a parachute just
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: before the spacecraft crashed, right, so it would be very
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: difficult to salvage. You know, the thing they set into space.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: It's very much It feels like it's more for show
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: than it is for anything else, doesn't it. So not
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: only did Friendship seven go, it also came back so
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: all thanks to Catherine Johnson's like superior calculations that had
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: outdone the IBM machine. So following like John Glenn's mission,
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: the Mercury project continued with a few more missions, so
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: you had Carpenter have a five R flight on a
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: Rower seven. In May, there was a niner flight aboard
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: Sigma seven by Shearer, and then that was October, and
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: then Cooper had a one hour and ten minute flight
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: aboard Faith on the fifteenth of May nineteen sixty three,
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: the last flight before Project Gemini started like the following year.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: So although the USSR had more time spent in space,
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: you know, including sending the first Soviet women in nineteen
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: sixty three, yes, a female cosmonaut on the sixteenth of
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: June nineteen sixty three, the United States was much closer
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: to landing on the Moon, which basically pushed them ahead
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: of the Soviet Union. So Catherine, right, she continues with
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: NASA taking part in the Gemini program, So she's also
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: involved in let's say nineteen sixty three, she's involved in
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: the Space This Walk program from sixty four to sixty six,
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: the Apollo Moon program from sixty six to seventy two,
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: the Skylap satellites seventy three to seventy four, and the
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: Apollo Sawyer's program in nineteen seventy five, the Joint mission
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: that entered the Space Race, and finally the Space Satellite
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: program from nineteen eighty one to twenty eleven. So there
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: were so many interviews with Catherine, and there's one she
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: does and it's like early two thousand's and she says
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: that her proudest moments, you know, apart from John Glenn's mission,
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: were the necessary calculations that she provided for the project
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: Apollo's lunar module, the trajectory for the Apollo eleven Moon mission,
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: and all of the backup procedures in safe pathway charts
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: that she provided during the Apollo thirteen incident. Like in
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: her last assignment before she retired was working with the
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: first space shuttles and Earth satellites in eighty six. So
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: when she retired, Catherine had authored and co authored twenty
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: six scientific research reports over thirty three years in NASA.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: She was presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: the highest civilian honor, and this was in twenty fifteen
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: by President Barack Obama. And soon after she got the
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: Congressional Gold Medal. So she lived her life, her daughters
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: grew up. She was such a huge part of American
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: space history, the science that had adventure and exploration. It
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: was amazing. And she was married to Jim Johnson for
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: sixty years. So he passed away at the age of
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: ninety three in twenty nineteen. And Catherine Johnson passed away
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: at the age of one hundred and one in her
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: retirement home in Newport News on the twenty of February
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty. So by the time she passes away, she
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: has three children, six grandchildren, eleven great grandchildren, and was
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: solivified as an American hero. Basically, what was it the
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: It was a NASA administrator who said that her pioneering
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: legacy will never be forgotten. And I think their history
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: we've so often swept women under the rug, and especially minorities.
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: You know, they're brushed off, they're overlooked, and we don't
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: see the work and the effort that they put in
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: and how they changed the world. She changed the world.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: And here's the thing, Like the Hidden Figures movie, it's
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: drama and whatever, it's whatever, but you know, it's based
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: on a true story. Not everything is fact, but you know,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: it follows a certain point, you know it. You know,
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: it has to condense everything down into a short thing.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: And I think it's a decent movie and that it
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: gets the vibe of what it's trying to say. You know,
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: especially I watch a lot of based on a true
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: story movies because history of them are bullshit. But this
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: has the tenacity that I think the women have and
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: I think it's amazing, and I really despise when we
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: ignore the accomplishments of women. Oh God, I'm actually getting
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: emotional about it, right, I know. They say, like, in
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: order to be a good historian, you have to like
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: take emotion out of it, and it's like, yeah, when
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: you're looking at the facts, when you're putting them into context,
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't be feeling something. Otherwise you're a fucking robot.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: Like emotions won't win. Facts will win. But you need
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: to understand history doesn't exist in a vacuum. And women
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: like Catherine Johnson, like they propped up the Western world,
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: and for a lot of these women throughout their lives,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: they just didn't have equal rights. They just didn't have
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: equal rights. Even now, rights are not equal because if
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: you don't have bodily autonomy, then you don't have your
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: coal rights, you know what I mean. And so yeah,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: Catherine Johnson just and she's a woman who is more
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: than just the sum of her work. And we do
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: this all the time. We're like, oh, this person was
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: either a parent, or they were a scientist, or they
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: were a mother, or they were a mathematician, it's they
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: never marry. The two is if people are multi fucking faceted,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: you know. And so when it comes to Catherine Johnson,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: I wanted to ensure that I was talking about her
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: personal life as well as her professional one, because it's
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: really easy to overlook it and it's really easy to
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: dismiss one because of the other, and they do that.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: People do that, and I'm not going to fuck that
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: for a game of soldiers. But yes, an absolute hero
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: to everyone, but specifically women in STEM. It's Black History Month,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: so I was gonna be talking about an amazing black
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: woman and I'm so happy I did, even though I'm
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: losing my voice again because I talk too much. But yes,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: if you liked my retelling of Catherine story, I feel
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: free to be interview five stars. If you didn't like it,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: you can keep your mouth shut. I don't need to
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: hear it. Okay, Okay, So any other news, any other news,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: I'll follow the socials sharing is caring. Share the episode
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: with everybody, please be amazing, because I've noticed a few
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: people have suddenly got podcasts out and I wanna. I
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: want to. I want to like, Hey, I've been here
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: for a while and we're working on this. Can we
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: just not do that right now? Can we just like, like,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: what is that all about? Okay, let's teach some people
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: the lesson that history fucking matters. Okay, anyway, that's just
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: me being a petty bitch. But yeah, it is Black
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: History Month, and so yeah, let us let us go
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: to recommendation time for watching hidden figures or listen, listen
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: it was it was going to be happening. It was
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: going to be happening. We're going for hidden figures, okay,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: And for reading ring Shout by Fenders and Jelly Clark
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: Jilly when it's Jilly Jilli, So there's accents on it,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: and I don't know whether we're what what the language
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: thing is for. I'm gonna spell it for you because
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: it's d j A with an accent going down, l
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: I with the going up. So if it's French, excellent
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: clav followed by excellent igu. Yeah, that's I don't know
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: what other languages have accents apart from Irish, and ours
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: all go the one way. They all just go. The
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: fat is all just point in the same direction. So yes,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: and for listening and for listening. You know what, Samantha Mamba,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: you go listen to some Samantha Mumba. Listen. I love
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: Samantha Mamba. I don't care. I love her, and I
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: go fuck right. I like people who are a little
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: bit of a deck, So go listen to her. She's amazing,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: and so with that, I shall bid you good night.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: Adios au revoir VIAZ my Friends