The story of the Space Race is usually about the square-jawed test pilots who beat the Russians by strapping themselves into the rockets that propelled them into space. Helping them were the engineers and scientists who pushed the technological envelope, testing and designing the vehicles to send these astronauts skyward. Very few people know that behind the scenes, there were the human computers who performed the much needed calculations for the engineers and scientists.
The film Hidden Figures, based on the book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly, tells the story of three female mathematicians, Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughn (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Mone), members of the West Area Computers, an all-African American group of female mathematicians operating out of NASA's Langley Research Center. Their contributions helped their country win the Space Race. The story of who these women were, and what they did was largely unknown. Until now.
Before Computers were Electronic, they were Human
Before computers became the electronic devices we know today, they were made of flesh and bone. The grinding hard work of large problem sets were often done by hand by breaking the mathematics into simpler parts. Though famed astronomer Edmond Halley identified and predicted when the comet named him would return, it was the work of French mathematician, Alexis Clairaut, along with Jrme Lalande and Nicole-Reine Lepaute, who successfully computed the comet's 1759 return. The trio, sitting at a table in Palais, Luxembourg, using nothing more than quill pens and paper, computed the comet's path by reducing the mathematics to a series of baby steps.
In the history of computing, this humbler level of scientific work was open, even welcoming, to women. Unfortunately, going beyond and stepping out into the field as a scientist was often denied to women even up to modern times. While women often excelled at computation, often exceeding their male counterparts, the female mind was assumed unable to handle the rigors of scientific work. By the early twentieth century, computation was often seen as "women's work," and computers were often assumed to be women.
Edward Charles Pickering, director of the Harvard College Observatory, often complained about his all-male computers and reportedly said that his Scottish maid could do a better job. In 1881, he hired his maid Williamina Fleming to process astronomical calculations and she performed admirably. She devised a system of classifying stars based on the relative amount of hydrogen observed in a star's spectra; the basis of which still remains a part of modern stellar classification systems.
In the first half of the 20th century, many American laboratories hired human computers to run their experiments. During that time, though relegated to the background, these women continued to play an important role in these institutions. Towards the late 1930's, the U.S.'s involvement in World War II shifted this dynamic, bringing women to the forefront of computing at academic and research centers across the country.
World War II and Air Supremacy
Though Hidden Figures takes place in the 1960s and follows the events leading up to John Glenn's orbit around the Earth, the three mathematicians started work at National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the federal agency created to conduct aeronautical research. At the start of World War I, the United States found itself trailing technologically at a period of rising international tension. NACA was created in 1915 as an emergency measure to, "supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their practical solution...," as described in an act of Congress.
Much of the research into aircraft design at NACA was done at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory (LMAL) in Hampton, VA. There engineers conducted a number of tests and experiments designed to test and improve a vehicle's flight performance. Each test generated a torrent of numbers, each a data-point derived from various measuring devices placed around various model surfaces. When each test or experiment was completed, the numbers representing the pressures and forces acting on various parts of a wing were sent to the computing pool for analysis along with the equations needed to process the data. The women who comprised the computing pool were expected to crunch the data and nothing more. This work was important. One of NACA's noted successes of the time was the P-51 Mustang. The single-seat fighter-bomber used during World War II and the Korean War was designed in 1940 by North American Aviation using one of NACA's laminar airfoils. These airfoils were specially designed to maximize the flow of smooth air around a wing is what made the P-51 a fast and maneuverable fighter, and would become the aircraft of choice for the Tuskegee Airmen.
By 1943, the United States of America was preparing for war and, once again, found itself trailing technologically amid international tensions. The mediocre aircraft industry needed to rise to the challenges of World War II and this meant changes at Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory. Improved research meant there was now a skyrocketing demand to process aeronautical data. With the rapid expansion of the nation's defense industries, pre-war employment policies that discriminated against minorities became inadequate. Changes were needed to sustain the viability of the nation's civil service and this meant an increased demand for workers. There was political pressure as well. In 1941, civil rights leader, A. Phillip Randolph led a march in Washington, D.C., to protest the discriminatory policies within the countrys war industries and Armed forces.
Fearing backlash, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 to subdue potential protests, and it worked. Executive Order 8802 established a Committee on Fair Employment Practice "to provide for the full and equitable participation of all workers in defense industries, without discrimination." This particular executive order was responsible for the continued diversification and progress within government employment and symbolized a need for change. Langley, like many other government facilities, adjusted to meet the Presidents expectations.
Dorothy Vaughn
To meet the demands of the war effort and Roosevelt's Executive Order 8802, NACA recruited women who majored in mathematics and the science straight from colleges and sororities across the country. NACA also posted computing jobs in pamphlets across colleges and universities, flyers in post offices, and advertisements in trade journals across the nation hoping to find suitably qualified candidates anywhere they could. One of those was Dorothy Vaughn.
In 1943, math teacher Dorothy Vaughn spied a curious bulletin with the word "mathematics" written on it. This bulletin from NACA was probably intended for the white, well-to-do students from the nearby all-female teaching college in Farmville, VA. Dorothy applied anyway and was accepted. While at NACA, the Jim Crow laws in effect in the state of Virginia meant that "colored" mathematicians like Dorothy had to work separately from their white counterparts. Dorothy was assigned to the segregated "West Area Computing" unit, an all-black group of female mathematicians.
Construction of the West Area began in 1939 and was completed around 1943 before Dorothy's arrival. Between 1941 and 1945, employee numbers at LMAL climbed dramatically from 940 to 3220, and with the construction of the West Area the lab itself doubled in size. While many of the female computers operating out of Langley had at least a bachelor's degree, men with similar qualifications were frequently hired as "Junior Engineers," a professional classification. Computers were classified as "sub-professional."
The East Area Computing, the all-white female counterparts to the West Area, also grew in size during the war years. Eventually the women in that section left for permanent assignments in the wind tunnels scattered around Langley. As the size of East Computing diminished, their open assignments were rerouted to West Computing. Segregation, unfortunately, kept the migration out of West Computing to a trickle.
As progressive as NACA might have been, there were limited ways for a black woman to advance in the organization-most opportunities began and ended in West Area. In 1949, West Area's head Blanche Sponster fell ill and Dorothy was appointed acting head of the West Area. Despite being able to handle the task of leading the group, it would take a full two years of waiting in limbo before Dorothy was promoted to the role on a permanent basis. In January 1951, Dorothy became the permanent head of West Computing.
Mary Jackson
Like Dorothy Vaughn, Mary Jackson (nee Winston) graduated with a degree in mathematics. When she filled out for her application to the Civil Service, she sent out two applications: one as a typist for the army and the other as a computer at Langley. In January 1951, she was called to work as a typist at Fort Monroe. During this time, NACA continued to grow and needed even more brilliant mathematicians to work in its many new facilities. After three months of working at Fort Monroe, Mary was called in to work with Dorothy Vaughn as a NACA computer.
At times, the work flow in East Computing would be too great for the computers to handle and a call would be sent to Dorothy for reinforcements. Two years after she started working at NACA, Dorothy temporarily sent Mary to work with the East Computers. By this time, the routine of computing work had become familiar to Mary. Unfortunately, when nature called, the same could not be said of her familiarity with East Area's geography. When Mary asked the white women where the bathroom was located, she was met with giggles. Why would they know where to find her bathroom. With no signs telling her which bathrooms she could use, feeling angry and humiliated, Mary stormed off to find her own bathroom.
The ignomy of racism was nothing new to Mary or any of the women in West Computing, or any of the black engineers on base for that matter. In that moment when she was being laughed at, she had been demoted from professional mathematician to second-class human being. Maybe she had had too much and could take no more. Later that day, Mary ran into Kazimierz "Kaz" Czarnecki, and aeronautical engineer and assistant section head to the Supersonic Pressure Tunnel. Mary broke protocol and vented her frustration to Kaz. This could have been a mistake that Mary would regret but Kaz listened patiently. When she had finished, Kaz asked her to come work for him. Mary eagerly accepted. Mary had made the first step out of West Computing and on her way to becoming an engineer.
Despite the racist rules of the South, Kaz recognized Mary's talent-something that was obvious before he knew of Mary's double major in mathematics and science. Kaz would eventually encourage Mary to enroll in the laboratory's engineer training program. While Mary now had the sponsor and mentor willing to guide her career as an engineer, things were not that simple. The classes she needed were being taught in the all-white Hampton High School. She would need special permission to attend classes.
Eventually the City of Hampton granted Mary the permission she needed to attend classes. Having had entry into an all-white school been denied to her and her people for so long, Mary expected the school to be paradise. There had to be a reason why schools were kept separate. The ugly Jim Crow Laws had to mean that whites were keeping the best for themselves. Instead what Mary found was something completely different. The school was antiquated and run-down. Instead of combining resources to build a beautiful school for everyone, the South maintained two parallel inefficient school systems. With racial prejudice came the arbitrary rules that subverted everyone's interests simply because they were taught to see themselves as different.
Eventually, Mary achieved her goal and broke through the glass ceiling to become an engineer. For Mary, this meant that she was often the only black person-or woman, or both for that matter-at industry conferences for years. After 34 years at NASA, Mary would reach the highest level she could without becoming a supervisor. Always the one to help other women get the necessary qualifications to advance in their careers while she was an engineer, Mary changed positions and became an administrator as an Equal Opportunity Specialist, taking a pay cut in the process. In that role, Mary helped make changes in NASA and highlighted the accomplishments of women and minorities in their fields.
Katherine Johnson
The opening scene of both the teaser and official trailers of the film features a young girl with a clear gift for mathematics. Katherine Coleman graduated from high school at fourteen and began attending West Virginia State College at fifteen. In both trailers she is seen solving a quartic equation to the surprise of her classmates. Katherine showed potential at an early age, describing herself as the girl who counted everything. She would count the steps to the road, the steps up to church, and the number of dishes and silverware she washed.
Born in 1918, Katherine began high school at the age of ten, at a time when schooling stopped past the eighth grade for most African-Americans. Katherine's father Joshua Coleman was determined that his bright little girl be given the chance to meet her potential. He drove the family 120 miles to the high-school Institute in West Virginia so she could continue her education. This was the right decision. Katherine graduated high-school at the age of fourteen and college at eighteen in 1937.
While at West Virginia State, William Waldron Schieffelin Claytor took Katherine under his wing, training the young girl and creating advanced maths classes just for her. Claytor encouraged Katherine to pursue a graduate degree in mathematics but there was a problem; there were not many graduate programs for black students in mathematics, at least until a 1938 Supreme Court ruling. Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada meant that states that provided schooling to white students had to provide in-state education to blacks as well. States could satisfy this requirement by either allowing blacks and whites to attend the same school or creating a second school for blacks.
The 1938 Supreme Court ruling meant that Katherine could attend West Virginia University in Morgantown. She was one of three African-American students and the only female selected to integrate the graduate school. Unfortunately, Katherine did not finish grad school, choosing to start a family with her husband James Goble. It was not until 1953, several years of being a teacher and a stay-at-home mom, that Katherine applied to NACA and became a West Computer.
Two weeks after her start at West Area, some engineers in the Flight Research Division needed the help of a mathematician. Dorothy Vaughn sent Katherine to work with them. The engineers never returned her to the computing pool. This posed a special problem for Dorothy. Katherine's offer to start work at NACA came with a six-month probationary period and though she had spent only two weeks in West Area, she was still Dorothy's responsibility. Dorothy confronted the engineers over their shared problem. They could either employ Katherine full-time and give her a raise, or send her back to the computing pool. Katherine was too valuable to send back, so they kept her.
The Sputnik Crisis, the Space Race, and NASA
On October 4, 1957, the world had awoken to the dawn of the Space Age. The Soviet Union launched a metal sphere with four external radio antennae to broadcast radio pulses into low Earth orbit. In the early 1950s, the United States was the dominant world power. U-2 spy planes made frequent flights over the USSR, providing intelligence on the country's nuclear capabilities. The United States was confident of its technological superiority, but the appearance of the world's first artificial satellite changed all that.
The USSR used Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, rockets specially designed to traverse distances far enough to hit a target a continent away. They were primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery and could deliver one or more thermonuclear warheads. The lunch of Sputnik gave the Soviets two victories over the US: not only had they rockets capable of sending a nuclear payload from Russia to anywhere in the US, they also sent an artificial satellite into space. The period of fear over the perceived technological gap between the two rival nations came to be known as the Sputnik Crisis.
The biggest fear Americans had was not that the Soviets had launched a satellite into orbit but that they took five days to release a photograph of the object; five days that shiny metallic object was orbiting the Earth-flying over US territory-and no American knew about it. Even when the US knew about it, there was skepticism. Sputnik weighed 83 kg (184 lbs), which dwarfed the US's plans to launch a satellite weighing 9.8 kg (21.5 lbs). Launching such a heavy object meant that the Soviet's rockets had to be far more powerful that the US's; America's rockets at the time produced 670,000 Newtons (150,000 pounds-force) of thrust while the R-7 that launched Sputnik produced 4,400,000 N (1,000,000 pounds-force) of thrust. This led to the American people's perception that they were greatly behind the Soviets in the development of space technologies.
This was considered to be a slap in the face to an entire nation. For the third time in the century, the United States found itself trailing technologically at a time of rising international tension. At the beginning of World War I, the country's inadequate supply of aircraft gave birth to NACA. Their mediocre aircraft industry only improved because of the challenge of World War II. Now American's were falling behind in the area of space. With the satellite circling the globe every ninety eight minutes, Americans demanded to know how their country's technological dominance could have been usurped by the Soviets.
To regain their technological edge, the United States needed an agency dedicated to conquering space. There were many competitors vying for the honor from the US Air Force, the US Naval Research Observatory in Washington, DC, and the Army Ballistic Missile Agency in Huntsville, Alabama. NACA was chosen for America's space mission. The once quiet and largely obscure agency needed a new name to go along with its new public, high profile image. In 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) with the passing of the Space Act of 1958.
Playing Catch-up
NASA decided that their first attempt at putting a man into space should be a simple ballistic flight. The capsule was fired into space by a rocket like a bullet from a gun, taking a parabolic path to land somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. The calculations to accomplish this needed to be precise. The astronaut's capsule had to land close enough to be picked up by nearby waiting navy ships. Though complex, it was comparatively simpler than orbiting the Earth, the eventual end game of Project Mercury.
It was Katherine who took it upon herself to analyze the trajectory of what would become the Freedom 7 mission where Alan Shepard (Dane Davenport) became the first American in space. The initial report she wrote, "Determination of Azimuth Angle at Burnout for Placing a Satellite over a Selected Earth Position," was submitted on the Friday after Thanksgiving 1959. The final report, after months or reviews and edits, would begin a new phase in Katherine's life. Not only had she authored a technical report that would be important to the Space Race, she had also accepted Colonel James Johnson's (Mahershala Ali) marriage proposal. The name she signed to that report would be the name that history would remember: Katherine G. Johnson.
As a nation sought to redeem itself, the Soviet Union once again dealt a blow to the United States. On April 12, 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin not only became the first human in space but the first to orbit Earth. The young organization absorbed the humiliating blow, turning the emotion to renewed intensity for the mission at hand. On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard (Dane Davenport) became the second person and the first American to space. The flight lasted fifteen minutes and twenty-two seconds, a pale technical achievement compared to Gagarin's flight a month before, but it emboldened President John F. Kennedy to pledge the United States to the goal of a manned mission to the Moon.
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Katherine vs. the IBM 7090 DPS
In the mid-1950s, NASA brought its first IBM computers. Originally meant for the finance department, the ability to crunch through large amounts of data quickly was seen as a boon and the machine was appropriated by researchers. One of the uses was to calculate the trajectory of the X-15, the rocket-powered hypersonic aircraft designed to reach the edge of space.
Dorothy Vaughn immediately saw the power of these machines. While human computers were not immediately threatened by these devices, there would come a time when their use would become more wide spread. Mastering and programming these electronic computers would be key to a mathematician's long term career stability. When Lagney sponsored a series of computation courses, Dorothy encouraged all the women in West Area to attend. They needed to move forward to remain valuable to NASA.
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The calculations in Katherine's Azimuth Angle report would play an important part in calculating the trajectory for NASA's first orbital mission. To maintain constant communication and control of the craft, NASA needed to know where to place the ground stations to establish communication and tracking links. Once built, the ground stations would capture data to be relayed via a jumble of submarine cables, landlines, and radio-waves to the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. At Goddard, the data was analyzed in real time and sent to Mission Control where NASA could know the current position of their spacecraft.
Though the early data-processing machines could process calculations that surpassed human ability, they were not exactly known for their reliability. Engineers, and the female computers, needed to keep a close eye on the machine's output. No one knew this better than John Glenn. The fly by the seat of your pants test pilot was used to trusting the machines he flew not just because he was in control but he also trusted the people who built them. Humans he could understand or reason with, even challenge if need be. These new IBMs were completely different. Computers might have been the future as Dorothy predicted, that did not mean John Glenn had to trust them. Glenn trusted the engineers and the engineers trusted Katherine Johnson. Glenn made the decision. He would not fly unless Katherine checked the computer's calculations.
The mission to send John Glenn in orbit around the Earth, Friendship 7, encountered multiple delays. First scheduled to launch at the end of 1960, a series of glitches, equipment improvements, and even weather, conspired to push the date further back. The flight was first pushed back to July 1961, then to October and December of that year, and would not take off until February 20, 1962. In that time, the Soviets once again beat the Americans by sending cosmonaut Gherman Titov on a 17 orbit mission on October 6, 1961. He spent almost a full day in space. Whether Friendship 7 would get off the ground or not, now rested on Katherine's shoulders.
Katherine, using nothing more than her brain and calculating machine, crunched the numbers for two possible launch scenarios, one following an eastward launch and the other westward. Using the same hypothetical numbers, NASA's engineers checked Katherine's calculations to their computer's output. It matched and was found to be in "very good agreement." John Glenn would fly.
On February 20, clear skies meant that the mission could go ahead. John Glenn was cleared for seven orbits. Unlike the previous Mercury missions, Glenn's was being broadcast live. Success or failure would mean the American public would know the outcome in real time. During the first orbit, as Glenn passed a tracking station in Mexico, Glenn reported a problem with his automatic control system - his craft was drifting about a degree and a half per second to the right. Switching to manual control fixed the problem and Glenn was able to fly the craft in the same way he flew a plane. More problems ensued. Instruments in the capsule indicated that one of the craft's heat shields may have come loose. Three hours and thirty-three minutes into flight, having completed his third orbit, Glenn fired the retro rockets and returned home.
The conclusion of the Friendship 7 mission meant Glenn was a hero. President Kennedy deemed him too valuable to risk for another Mercury mission and, given his age of 42 years, Glenn knew he was unlikely he would be chosen for a lunar mission. He resigned from NASA on January 16, 1964. Though still behind in the Space Race, the United States was catching up. Project Mercury would go on to complete three more missions with Scott Carpenter (Travis Smith), Wally Schirra (Glenn Allen), and Gordon Cooper (Joe Hardy Jr). The success of America's first manned space mission would lead to Project Gemini, the missions that would eventually put the US in the lead against the Soviet Union to ultimately win with a landing on the Moon in the Apollo missions.
Why is 'Hidden Figures' the Movie we need Today?
The three women featured in the movie Hidden Figures broke the barriers of race and gender to show that everyone can do mathematics, science, and engineering. Katherine Johnson, the only surviving member of the trio, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 for her mathematical work at NASA. While the accomplishments of these women, as well as the other human computers, are extraordinary, women and people of color today remain largely underrepresented in STEM fields. Though women make up half of the total U.S. college-educated workforce, they only for less than 30% of the science and engineering workforce.
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It is somewhat ironic that during the early 20th century, mathematics was seen as women's work. It was deemed so lowly that Pickering hired his maid to run his calculations and many laboratories of the time, only hired women to crunch the numbers, leaving the heavy lifting of real scientific work and discovery to men. While we no longer consider mathematics "women's work," there are still barriers to this and other STEM fields. This is a serious issue. Mary Jackson faced similar obstacles despite having the mind of an engineer. She succeeded because of her tenacity and having a mentor who believed in her. In Scotland, while a large number of women graduate in STEM subjects, they often do not move onto STEM careers like men. This represents a 170 million per annum loss to Scotland's national income. As world economies diversify and become more technology based, preventing women from succeeding in these fields will no longer be tenable.
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There are many reasons why this gender and racial imbalance exist. We actively tell girls they can not or should not pursue these courses; girls lose self-confidence in middle school because they believe that men possess more intelligence in technical fields. Movies like Hidden Figures can dispel those myths. In an interview by Vanity Fair, Michio Kaku cites Albert Einstein as one of his role models. He said:
By following his path, I knew that I had to do graduate work, get a Ph.D., and become a professor. It gave me a timeline.
Each woman had to overcome racism, dehumanizing Jim Crow laws, and sexism to be recognized for their skills and intellect. There is a subtle irony that, given the times, a white male and American hero trusted a black woman with his life as he strapped himself onto a rocket and orbited the Earth. Learning about these women, their life stories, and what they accomplished can do the same. It teaches girls about women in STEM, gives them a hero to look up, and a goal to aspire to.
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'Hidden Figures' is currently available in selected theaters, and can be seen nationwide from January 6th, 2016.