Johnson attended the opening which also marked the 55th anniversary of astronaut Alan Shepard's historic rocket launch and splashdown, a success she helped achieve. Johnson Computational Research Facility" and formally dedicated at the agency's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. On May 5, 2016, a new 40,000 square-foot building was named "Katherine G. Before even retiring from NASA, she was listed among African Americans in science and technology. ![]() She co-authored 26 scientific papers and her social influence as a pioneer in space science and computing is shown by the honors she received and her status as a role model for a life in science. The space agency noted her "historical role as one of the first African-American women to work as a NASA scientist." In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom and in 2019, she was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. During her career, she mastered complex manual calculations and helped pioneer the use of computers to perform the tasks. Her calculations of orbital mechanics were critical to the success of the first and subsequent US spaceflights. In 1958, she began working as an aerospace technologist and to the Spacecraft Control Branch. She asked to be included in editorial meetings where women had not been gone before stating she had done the work and that she should be included. Mostly, they read the data from the black boxes of planes and then one day, she and a colleague were temporarily assigned to help the all-male flight research team. Initially, she worked with other women and she described them as a virtual "computers who wore skirts". In 1953, she obtained a job with National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) as a mathematician. She was the first African-American woman to attend graduate school at West Virginia University.
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