Frances "Poppy" Northcutt (born August 10, 1943) is an American engineer and attorney who began her career as a computer operator and was later a member of the technical staff of

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

Apollo program The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which Moon landing, landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. Apollo followed Project Mercury that put the first Americans in sp ...

during the

Space Race The Space Race (, ) was a 20th-century competition between the Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between t ...

. During the

Apollo 8 Apollo 8 (December 21–27, 1968) was the first crewed spacecraft to leave Sphere of influence (astrodynamics), Earth's gravitational sphere of influence, and the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon. The crew orbited the Moon ten times ...

mission she became the first female engineer to work in NASA's

Mission Control A mission control center (MCC, sometimes called a flight control center or operations center) is a facility that manages space flights, usually from the point of launch until landing or the end of the mission. It is part of the ground segment ...

. Later in her career, Northcutt became an attorney specializing in

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and Entitlement (fair division), entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st c ...

. In the early 1970s, she served on the national board of directors of the

National Organization for Women The National Organization for Women (NOW) is an American feminist organization. Founded in 1966, it is legally a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S. states and in Washington, D.C. It ...

. She has worked in

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

advocating for

abortion rights Abortion-rights movements, also self-styled as pro-choice movements, are movements that advocate for legal access to induced abortion services, including elective abortion. They seek to represent and support women who wish to terminate their p ...

Early life

Northcutt was born in

Many, Louisiana Many () is a town in, and the parish seat of Sabine Parish in western Louisiana, United States. The population was 2,853 at the 2010 census, a decrease of 36 or 1.246% from 2000. History The site where Many currently sits was originally a Belg ...

, on August 10, 1943. She grew up in

Luling, Texas Luling is a city in Caldwell County, Texas, Caldwell and Guadalupe County, Texas, Guadalupe counties, Texas, United States, along the San Marcos River. The population as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census was 5,599. History The tow ...

, and then moved to

Dayton, Texas Dayton is a city in Liberty County, Texas, United States. The population was 8,777 at the 2020 census. Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which all but is land. Climate The climate in thi ...

. Northcutt attended high school at Dayton High School in Liberty County and then went on to study

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

at the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 2 ...

.Alt URL
/ref>

Career

Apollo Program

After graduating in three and a half years, Northcutt was hired in 1965 by TRW, an aerospace contractor with

, as a computress for the new

. After six months, she had her first performance evaluation, and the head of Houston operations wanted to promote her to technical staff, the term they used for staff doing

engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...

work. Northcutt was the first woman to work as technical staff. The pay difference between the computress role and the technical staff role was so large that the company did not have mechanisms in place to approve Northcutt's promotion. The operations manager had to schedule pay raises as frequently as possible so that Northcutt's salary was equitable compared to her male colleagues. This experience with the

gender pay gap The gender pay gap or gender wage gap is the average difference between the remuneration for men and women who are Employment, employed. Women are generally found to be paid less than men. There are two distinct measurements of the pay gap: non ...

inspired Northcutt's later activism for women's rights. Northcutt was stationed in the Mission Control's Mission Planning and Analysis room. Northcutt and her team designed the return-to-Earth trajectory that the

crew took from the Moon back to Earth. She was able to identify mistakes in the plan, including making calculations that lowered the amount of fuel used to swing around the Moon. Apollo 8 was the second crewed Apollo spacecraft and became the first crewed mission to ever leave Earth orbit. It successfully reached the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

, orbited it and then returned to Earth safely on December 27, 1968. Northcutt continued working with TRW and NASA for several more years, working NASA missions such as

Apollo 13 Apollo 13 (April 1117, 1970) was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo program, Apollo space program and would have been the third Moon landing. The craft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the landing was abort ...

. After learning about the exploded oxygen tank on the Apollo 13 mission, Northcutt and the other engineers who developed the computer program for Apollo 13 all came in to find a way to get the astronauts home safely. The program that she worked on was used to compute the maneuvers used to return the spacecraft. Northcutt and the Mission Operations Team were later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom Team Award for their work on Apollo 13. In 2019 she gave an interview about her Apollo work. Lay-audience books and articles have claimed that a lunar crater near where the

Apollo 17 Apollo 17 (December 7–19, 1972) was the eleventh and final mission of NASA's Apollo program, the sixth and most recent time humans have set foot on the Moon. Commander Gene Cernan and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt walked on the Moon, ...

Lunar Module The Apollo Lunar Module (LM ), originally designated the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), was the lunar lander spacecraft that was flown between lunar orbit and the Moon's surface during the United States' Apollo program. It was the first crewed s ...

landed was named for her. However,

Gene Cernan Eugene Andrew Cernan (; March 14, 1934 – January 16, 2017) was an American astronaut, naval aviator, electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer, and fighter pilot. Cernan traveled into space three times and to the Moon twice: as pilot ...

, the commander of the Apollo 17 mission, stated in an interview for the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal that in advance of the mission, he had named a crater after the nickname that his daughter used for one of her grandfathers. That nickname was "Poppie". NASA documents misspelled it as "Poppy". Apollo crews and the NASA Astronaut Office assigned unofficial names to lunar features for convenience in referring to them. Other names given by Cernan to craters near the landing site were "Punk", his nickname for his daughter, and " Frosty" and " Rudolph", the names of characters in children's Christmastime stories. The International Astronomical Union's / U.S. Geological Survey's Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature has no entries for lunar craters named either "Poppie" or "Poppy". On December 19, 2023, the IAU: WG Small Bodies Nomenclature (WGSBN) announce that the Main-belt Asteroid (355657)2008 EA89 was named "Poppy" in her honor.

Women's rights movement

While at TRW, Northcutt served on the company's affirmative action committee and advocated to improve its pregnancy leave policies. As one of few women working in engineering, Northcutt became increasingly involved in the

women's liberation movement The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism. It emerged in the late 1960s and continued till the 1980s, primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which resulted in g ...

. She helped organize demonstrations, strikes, speeches, press releases and whatever else she could to help the cause with the National Organization for Women. She spoke at Houston City Council many times, and in 1974 the mayor of Houston named her the first Women's Advocate for the city. In this position she helped pass legislation improving the status of women. She negotiated an agreement with the Houston Police Department enabling women to become police officers. She got the Houston Fire Department to agree to let women serve as firefighters. She led an equal-pay study of the entire Houston municipal payroll. She was so dedicated to improving equality that she counted women's versus men's throughout all of Houston, helping to bring even this number into parity. Northcutt helped drastically increase the number of women that were on appointed boards and commissions. She helped pass a law that prohibited hospitals from charging women who came in for

rape kit A rape kit or rape test kit is a package of items used by medical, police or other personnel for gathering and preserving physical evidence following an instance or allegation of sexual assault. The evidence collected from the victim can aid the ...

s. Later on, Northcutt would become President of both the city of Houston chapter and the state of Texas chapter for the

. During this time, Northcutt was still employed by TRW, receiving a partial salary as she was on loan. When her loan expired, she went back to TRW for a while. However, she believed that "If you were doing your job, you should do yourself out of a job" and thus went to

Merrill Lynch Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated, doing business as Merrill, and previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investm ...

, a stockbroker firm, for a year. Northcutt then switched into the TRW Controls division and during this time attended law school at night.

Legal career

In 1984, Northcutt graduated

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...

from the

University of Houston Law Center The University of Houston Law Center is the Law school in the United States, law school of the University of Houston in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1947, the Law Center is one of 12 colleges of the University of Houston, a state university. It is ...

, becoming a

criminal defense lawyer A criminal defense lawyer is a lawyer (mostly barristers) specializing in the Defense (legal), defense of individuals and companies charged with Criminal law, criminal activity. Some criminal defense lawyers are privately retained, while other ...

. Northcutt continued to practice law with special emphasis and dedication to her fight for

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' political freedom, freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and ...

. Northcutt worked for Jane's Due Process, an organization that ensures protections for pregnant legal minors. She also worked for the Harris County District Attorney's office and was the first prosecutor in the Domestic Violence Unit.

In popular culture

She is mentioned in the

Apple TV+ Apple TV+ is an American subscription over-the-top streaming service owned by Apple. The service launched on November 1, 2019, and it offers a selection of original production film and television series called Apple Originals. The service w ...

show '' For All Mankind''.Paul K. Guinnessy,
Review: For All Mankind rewrites history with a prolonged space race
,''

Physics Today ''Physics Today'' is the membership magazine of the American Institute of Physics. First published in May 1948, it is issued on a monthly schedule, and is provided to the members of ten physics societies, including the American Physical Society. ...

'' DOI:10.1063/PT.6.3.20191120a Nov 20, 2019, Retrieved November 12, 2022.