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West Area Computers
The West Area Computers (short for West Area Computing Unit) were the African American, female mathematicians who worked as human computers at the Langley Research Center of NACA (predecessor of NASA) from 1943 through 1958. These women were a subset of the hundreds of female mathematicians who began careers in aeronautical research during World War II. To offset the loss of manpower as men joined the war effort, many U.S. organizations began hiring, and actively recruiting, more women and minorities during the 1940s. In 1935, the Langley Research Center had five female human computers on staff. By 1946, the Langley Research Center had recruited about 400 female human computers. The West Computers were originally subject to Virginia's Jim Crow laws and got their name because they worked at Langley's West Area, while the white mathematicians worked in the East section. In order to work at NACA, the applicants had to pass a civil service exam. Despite Executive Order 8802 outlawing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African American
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black people, Black racial groups of Africa. African Americans constitute the second largest ethno-racial group in the U.S. after White Americans. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of Slavery in the United States, Africans enslaved in the United States. In 2023, an estimated 48.3 million people self-identified as Black, making up 14.4% of the country’s population. This marks a 33% increase since 2000, when there were 36.2 million Black people living in the U.S. African-American history began in the 16th century, with Africans being sold to Atlantic slave trade, European slave traders and Middle Passage, transported across the Atlantic to Slavery in the colonial history of the United States, the Western He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Katherine Johnson
Creola Katherine Johnson (; August 26, 1918February 24, 2020) was an American mathematician whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. crewed spaceflights.* During her 33-year career at NASA and its predecessor, she earned a reputation for mastering complex manual calculations and helped pioneer the use of computers to perform the tasks. The space agency noted her "historical role as one of the first African-American women to work as a NASA scientist". Johnson's work included calculating trajectories, launch windows, and emergency return paths for Project Mercury spaceflights, including those for astronauts Alan Shepard, the first American in space, and John Glenn, the first American in orbit, and rendezvous paths for the Apollo Lunar Module and command module on flights to the Moon. Her calculations were also essential to the beginning of the Space Shuttle program, and she worked on plans for a m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kathaleen Land
Bonnie Kathaleen Land (21 November 1918 - 7 October 2012) was a computer and mathematician at NASA's Langley facility. The 2016 movie ''Hidden Figures'', which brought awareness to this early success within the NASA space program, was written by Land's former Sunday school student, and Land served as one of the first interviewees during research for the novel. Land was called the "inspiration behind, catalyst for, and gateway to" the creation of ''Hidden Figures''. She was married to Stanley Land and had three daughters. She died on 7 October 2012. Biography Bonnie Kathaleen Pleasants was born on 21 November 1918 in Bridgewater, Virginia. She married Stanley Land on 1 December 1941 in Newport News, Virginia, and they had three daughters. She worked as a human computer and mathematician at NASA's Langley Research Center facility. When Margot Lee Shetterly, the author of ''Hidden Figures'', was a child, Land taught her in Sunday school following Land's retirement from NASA. Lan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melba Roy Mouton
Melba Roy Mouton (April 28, 1929 – June 25, 1990) was an African American mathematician who served as Assistant Chief of Research Programs at NASA's Trajectory and Geodynamics Division in the 1960s and headed a group of NASA mathematicians called "computers". She served as Head Mathematician for Echo Satellites 1 and 2 before becoming Head Computer Programmer and then Program Production Section Chief at Goddard Space Flight Center. Early life and education Melba Louise Chloe was born in 1929, in Fairfax, Virginia to Rhodie and Edna Chloe (née Robinson). She graduated from Howard University in 1950 with a master's degree in mathematics, after receiving a bachelor's degree in mathematics with a minor in physics. While at Howard, Mouton was president of the Kelly Miller Chapter of Future Teachers of America, a member of the NAACP, the Mathematics Club, and the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She was also on the Dean's Honor Roll for four years, and was selected for the 1949– ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christine Darden
Christine Darden (born September 10, 1942, as Christine Mann) is an American mathematician, data analyst and aeronautical engineer who devoted much of her 40-year career in aerodynamics at NASA to research supersonic flight and sonic booms. She had an M.S. in mathematics and had been teaching at Virginia State University before starting to work at the Langley Research Center in 1967. She earned a DSc in Mechanical Engineering at George Washington University in 1983 and has published numerous articles in her field. She was the first African-American woman at NASA's Langley Research Center to be promoted to the Senior Executive Service (United States), Senior Executive Service, the top rank in the federal civil service. Darden is one of the researchers featured in the book ''Hidden Figures (book), Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race'' (2016), a history of some of the influential African-American wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miriam D
Miriam (, lit. ‘rebellion’) is described in the Hebrew Bible as the daughter of Amram and Jochebed, and the older sister of Moses and Aaron. She was a prophetess and first appears in the Book of Exodus. The Torah refers to her as "Miriam the Prophetess" and the Talmud names her as one of the seven major female prophets of Israel. Scripture describes her alongside of Moses and Aaron as delivering the Jews from exile in Egypt: "For I brought you up out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam". According to the Midrash, just as Moses led the men out of Egypt and taught them Torah, so too Miriam led the women and taught them Torah. Biblical narrative Miriam was the daughter of Amram and Jochebed and the sister of Aaron and Moses, the leader of the Israelites in ancient Egypt. The narrative of Moses's infancy in the Torah describes an unnamed sister of Moses observing him being placed in the Nile; she is t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hidden Figures
''Hidden Figures'' is a 2016 American Biographical film, biographical Drama (film and television), drama film directed by Theodore Melfi and written by Melfi and Allison Schroeder. It is loosely based on the 2016 non-fiction Hidden Figures (book), book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly about three female African-American mathematicians: Katherine Johnson, Katherine Goble Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (engineer), Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe), who worked at NASA during the Space Race. Other stars include Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Jim Parsons, Mahershala Ali, Aldis Hodge, and Glen Powell. Principal photography began in March 2016 in Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia, and wrapped up in May 2016. Other filming locations included several other locations in Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, including East Point, Georgia, East Point, Canton, Georgia, Canton, Monroe, Georgia, Monroe, Columbus, Georgia, Columbus, and Madison, Georgia, Mad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Institute Of Physics
The American Institute of Physics (AIP) promotes science and the profession of physics, publishes physics journals, and produces publications for scientific and engineering societies. The AIP is made up of various member societies. Its corporate headquarters are at the American Center for Physics in College Park, Maryland, but the institute also has offices in Melville, New York, and Beijing. Historical overview The AIP was founded in 1931 as a response to lack of funding for the sciences during the Great Depression. /www.aip.org/aip/history "History of AIP" American Institute of Physics. July 2010. The AIP was founded in 1931 at a joint meeting between four physics societies: the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America, the Acoustical Society of America, and the Society of Rheology. These were soon joined by the American Association of Physics Teachers, for a total of five societies. It formally incorporated in 1932 consisting of five original "member so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Project Mercury
Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Union. Taken over from the US Air Force by the newly created civilian space agency NASA, it conducted 20 uncrewed developmental flights (some using animals), and six successful flights by astronauts. The program, which took its name from Roman mythology, cost $ (adjusted for inflation). The astronauts were collectively known as the " Mercury Seven", and each spacecraft was given a name ending with a "7" by its pilot. The Space Race began with the 1957 launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik 1. This came as a shock to the American public, and led to the creation of NASA to expedite existing US space exploration efforts, and place most of them under civilian control. After the successful launch of the Explorer 1 satellite in 1958, crewed spac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mercury-Atlas 6
Mercury-Atlas 6 (MA-6) was the first crewed American orbital spaceflight, which took place on February 20, 1962. Piloted by astronaut John Glenn and operated by NASA as part of Project Mercury, it was the fifth human spaceflight, preceded by Soviet orbital flights Vostok 1 and 2 and American sub-orbital flights Mercury-Redstone 3 and 4. The Mercury spacecraft, named ''Friendship 7'', was carried to orbit by an Atlas LV-3B launch vehicle lifting off from Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. After three orbits, the spacecraft re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, splashed down in the North Atlantic Ocean, and was safely taken aboard . The total mission flight time was 4 hours 55 minutes and 23 seconds. Preparation After the successful completion of the Mercury-Atlas 5 flight that carried Enos, a chimpanzee, in late November 1961, a press conference was held in early December. Reporters asked NASA's Robert Gilruth who would be the first U.S. astronaut in orbit, pilo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Glenn
John Herschel Glenn Jr. (July 18, 1921 – December 8, 2016) was an American Marine Corps aviator, astronaut, businessman, and politician. He was the third American in space and the first to orbit the Earth, circling it three times in 1962. Following his retirement from NASA, he served from 1974 to 1999 as a United States Senate, U.S. Senator from Ohio; in 1998, he flew into space again at the age of 77. Before joining NASA, Glenn was a distinguished fighter pilot in World War II, the Operation Beleaguer, Chinese Civil War, and the Korean War. He shot down three MiG-15s and was awarded six Distinguished Flying Cross (United States), Distinguished Flying Crosses and eighteen Air Medals. In 1957, he made the first supersonic transcontinental flight across the United States. His on-board camera took the first continuous, panoramic photograph of the United States. Glenn was one of the Mercury Seven military test pilots selected in 1959 by NASA as the nation's first astron ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Astronaut
An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spacecraft. Although generally reserved for professional space travelers, the term is sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists, and space tourists. "Astronaut" technically applies to all human space travelers regardless of nationality. However, astronauts fielded by Russia or the Soviet Union are typically known instead as cosmonauts (from the Russian "kosmos" (космос), meaning "space", also borrowed from Greek ). Comparatively recent developments in crewed spaceflight made by China have led to the rise of the term taikonaut (from the Standard Chinese, Mandarin "tàikōng" (), meaning "space"), although its use is somewhat informal and its origin is unclear. In China, the People' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
