Harris Honors Katherine Johnson in Washington Post Op-Ed
"After 101 years, Katherine Johnson left this earth with a contribution that far exceeds her work at NASA: She has inspired young black girls to reach for the stars. The film “Hidden Figures” made famous her work calculating the trajectory the Mercury space capsule had to follow to reenter the Earth’s atmosphere. While these calculations were first derived by an electronic computer, astronaut John Glenn refused to launch until the computer’s data were confirmed by manual calculation. And there was only one person he trusted fully to do that calculation: Johnson. Only when her work was complete did Glenn declare the mission a go."
