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- Katherine G. Johnson, portrayed by Taraji P. Henson. A physicist and mathematician, Katherine G. Johnson worked with NASA in calculating trajectories, launch windows and the return paths for many famous space flights.
- Dorothy Vaughan, portrayed by Octavia Spencer. A mathematician, Dorothy Vaughan was the first African-American woman to be promoted as a head of personnel at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, later known as NASA.
- Mary Jackson, portrayed by Janelle Monáe. Mary Jackson was a mathematician and NASA's first black female engineer in 1958. She influenced the hiring and promoting of women in science, engineering and mathematics careers at NASA.
- John Glenn, portrayed by Glen Powell. John Glenn, an astronaut and engineer, was the first American to orbit the Earth and fifth person into space. He received the NASA Distinguished Service Medal and the Congressional Space Medal of Honor and was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame.
It is loosely based on the 2016 non-fiction book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly about three female African-American mathematicians: Katherine Goble Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe), who worked at NASA during the Space Race.
- Is Kevin Costner's Character Based on A Real person?
- Was Katherine Johnson Hired Directly Into NASA's Space Program?
- Is Jim Parsons' Character, NASA Engineer Paul Stafford, Based on A Real person?
- Were The Women Really Known as "Computers"?
- Was Dorothy Vaughan NACA's First Black Supervisor?
- Did Katherine Have to Run Across The NASA Langley Campus to Use The bathroom?
- Was Mary Jackson Really NASA's First African-American Female Engineer?
- Did The Women Mathematicians at NASA Get to Meet Astronauts Like John Glenn?
- What Did The Real Katherine Johnson Think of The Movie?
Not exactly. In researching the Hidden Figures true story, we learned that Kevin Costner's character, Al Harrison, is based on three different directors at NASA Langley during Katherine Johnson's time at the research facility. The movie's director, Theodore Melfi, was unable to secure the rights to the guy he wanted, so he decided to make Costner's...
No. The Hidden Figures true story confirms that she was hired in 1953 at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia to work as part of a female team nicknamed "Computers Who Wear Skirts." She then began to assist the all-male flight research team, who eventually welcomed her on board. Like in the movie, she worked with airplanes in the Gui...
No. In fact-checking the Hidden Figuresmovie, we learned that white collar statistician Paul Stafford, portrayed by Jim Parsons, is a fictional character. He was created to represent certain racist and sexist attitudes that existed during the 1950s. In the film, he thwarts every effort Katherine (Taraji P. Henson) makes to get ahead, including redu...
Yes. Before the days of electronic computers that we're familiar with today, the women hired at NASA to calculate trajectories, the results of wind tunnel tests, etc. had the job title of "computer." In simple terms, these were mathematicians who performed computations. Even when electronic computers were first used at NASA, human computers like Ka...
Yes. As we explored the Hidden Figures true story, we discovered that Dorothy Vaughan became NACA's first black supervisor in 1948, five years before Katherine Johnson started working there. Vaughan was also an advocate and voice for the women in the "West Computers" pool. The movie shows her leading the women down the hall to their next assignment...
Not exactly. In Margot Lee Shetterly's book, this is something that is experienced more by Mary Jackson (portrayed by Janelle Monáe) than Katherine Johnson. Mary went to work on a project on NASA Langley's East Side alongside several white computers. She was not familiar with those buildings and when she asked a group of white women where the bathr...
Yes. Mary Jackson, portrayed by Janelle Monáe in the movie, was hired to work at Langley in 1951. Like in the movie, she accepted an assignment assisting senior aeronautical research engineer Kazimierz Czarnecki (renamed Karl Zielinski in the movie), who encouraged her to pursue a degree in engineering, which required her to take after-work graduat...
Yes. "We did get to meet the astronauts," says the real Katherine Johnson. "They weren't as excited as we were, and we just looked at them in awe." -WHROTV
"Katherine Johnson saw the movie and she really liked it," said author Margot Shetterly (Space.com). Katherine told the Daily Press, "It sounded good...It sounded very, very accurate." Broaden your knowledge of the Hidden Figurestrue story by viewing the Katherine G. Johnson interview and documentary below. Then watch an interview with Tracy Drain,...
With Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monáe, Kevin Costner. Three female African-American mathematicians play a pivotal role in astronaut John Glenn's launch into orbit. Meanwhile, they also have to deal with racial and gender discrimination at work.
- (260K)
- Biography, Drama, History
- Theodore Melfi
- 2017-01-06
The answer is yes: Glenn, the first American in orbit and later, at the age of 77, the oldest man in space, really did ask for Johnson to manually check calculations generated by IBM 7090...
Men Into Space (a.k.a. Space Challenge in later US syndication) is an American black-and-white science fiction television series, produced by Ziv Television Programs, Inc., that was first broadcast by CBS from September 30, 1959, to September 7, 1960.
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Feb 24, 2020 · NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson calculated the path that put a man on the moon and catapulted America to first place in the race to space.
