RIP Katherine Johnson

kyoto kid

...just learned that Katherine Johnson passed away at the age of 101.  

Mrs Johnson was a renouned African American mathemetician and physicist who worked for both the NACA and NASA.  She is known for calculating lauch windows with for the Mercury project and verifying computer calculations (John Glenn refused to fly unless she verified the computer's data for the his orbital flight). In 1969 she assisted in calculating the trajectoryfor the Apollo 11 moon landing.  A building at the Lanaley Research cantre space centre was named in her hounour and in 2015 she was granted the Presidential Medal of Freedom (only the 17th individual to recieve the honour at the time) by Presdient Barack Obama. 

Gosdspeed Mrs. Johnson.

memcneil70

One of the greats of Space Age and of our world. 

High Flight by John Gillespie Magee Jr. speaks to her.

"Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds -
and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of -
wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence.
Hovering there I've chased the shouting wind along
and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air.

"Up, up the long delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
where never lark, or even eagle, flew;
and, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand and touched the face of God."

 

Diomede

RIP

Thanks for all the great number crunching - to the moon, Alice.

LeatherGryphon

Another behind-the-scenes hero.

Quietrob

Kathryn was a hero and a hero of mine.  The world is not quite as bright without her.  Thanks for posting this.

Silver Dolphin

Very smart lady. Science has lost a great mind. Rest in Peace

kyoto kid

memcneil70 said:

One of the greats of Space Age and of our world. 

High Flight by John Gillespie Magee Jr. speaks to her.

"Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds -
and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of -
wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence.
Hovering there I've chased the shouting wind along
and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air.

"Up, up the long delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
where never lark, or even eagle, flew;
and, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand and touched the face of God."

 

...

kyoto kid

LeatherGryphon said:

Another behind-the-scenes hero.

...