Slipping the Surly Bonds of Earth

Katherine Johnson had two strikes against her when she went to work for the space administration in 1958. She wasn't white and she wasn't male. But much like her contemporary, Audrey Evans, she said she never felt inferior. She had brains and determination. She believed she was "as good as anybody." Indeed she was. Despite not being allowed to use the same offices or dining and bathroom facilities as the men, she became one of NASA's s most valued mathematicians as she calculated the trajectory of the flights that took male astronauts into space and to the moon. Katherine died on February 24, 2020, at the age of 101, but her story will continue to inspire others to shoot for the stars. #STEM #HiddenFigures #NASA

Photo by NASA, shared on Wikimedia