Katherine Johnson

By: Esther

Katherine Johnson, born in 1918 in West Virginia, was a brilliant African-American mathematician whose calculations were critical to NASA’s early space missions—including the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing. A child prodigy who excelled in mathematics from an early age, Johnson joined NASA’s predecessor, NACA, in the 1950s as part of a pool of Black women known as “human computers.” Despite working in a segregated and male-dominated environment, her intellect and precision quickly earned the respect of her colleagues. She played a vital role in calculating trajectories, launch windows, and re-entry paths for spaceflights, and astronaut John Glenn famously refused to launch until she personally verified the mission math.

In 1969, though still largely unrecognised by the public, Johnson was quietly shaping history—her work helping to land men on the Moon. Calm, meticulous, and humble, she carried herself with quiet confidence and unshakeable dignity, challenging both racial and gender barriers not through protest, but through excellence.