It was Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson (born August 26, 1918), an African-American mathematician, who played a crucial role in launching the first Americans into space and bringing them home safely. She performed calculations that were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. manned spaceflights during her time at NASA. At a time before modern-day computers, Johnson was the computer. She worked at NASA for 35 years and was known for her accuracy in both manual and computerized calculations for celestial navigations.
As depicted in the movie Hidden Figures, despite stark racism along with the separatist culture and rules in the workplace at NASA, which created obstacles nearly every step of the way, Johnson persevered and used her talents to benefit all of humankind. In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Throughout her career, she calculated the trajectories, launch windows, and emergency back-up return paths for Project Mercury, including the first U.S. spaceflight by Alan Shepard and the first U.S. orbital flight by John Glenn, and the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the Moon. Her calculations were essential to the launch of the Space Shuttle program and helped to lay plans for a mission to Mars.